Moment to Moment and Year to Year:
Preventing Contemporary Problem Behavior in Schools

George Sugai, Rob Horner, and Tim Lewis[1]
National Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports


Effective education faces many challenges: chronic absenteeism, dropout, diversity inequities, antisocial conduct and violence, emotional and behavioral disorders, suspensions and expulsions. We suggest that the solution emphasize the adoption of a two-prong prevention approach that considers informed decision making, selection of evidence-based practices, and implementation of culturally relevant tiered systems of support.

The Long-Vision on Prevention

The first prong is a long-vision on prevention that requires a systematic and deliberate implementation of daily proactive practices. Prevention is more than “catching kids early.” It is about “vaccinating” all children against the adoption or learning of socially and educationally damaging behaviors. This vaccination requires a daily dose of social skills instruction, practice, and reinforcement on everyday expectations and routines that are imbedded into every instructional and social interaction.

At a universal level, we focus on a few school- and classroom-wide traits or values (e.g., respect self, others, and property; or responsibility, respect, and safety) that are defined by specific behavioral examples and linked to typical classroom (e.g., lecture, independent study, transition) and school (e.g., hallways, assemblies, cafeteria, field trips, entering/exiting the school) contexts. Although environmental cues (e.g., posters, signage) are useful, the real impact occurs during each moment-to-moment and day-to-day teaching and social interaction.

From a long-vision perspective, prevention also means having an explicit continuum of evidence-based practices that enables predictable and efficient supports for students who need more than the universal dose of social skills instruction. The investment is on the following priorities:

  1. Development of decision-based data systems that enable efficient universal screening, continuous progress monitoring, and regular checks of implementation fidelity.
  2. Use of the smallest combination of most effective intervention strategies that can enhance the most important educational outcomes.
  3. Coordination or leadership team that is unwaveringly focused on high fidelity delivery of these practices and systems.
  4. Long-vision on prevention includes giving equal priority to the tiered implementation of effective instructional curriculum and targeted differentiated instruction for all learners, especially those with learning-risk (e.g., access to instruction, disability, mental health issues).

If the long vision is given implementation priority, the long-term prevention outcomes can be significant:

  1. reductions in norm-violating behavior,
  2. increases in student self-management behaviors,
  3. decreases in teasing and harassment,
  4. increases in reported positive classroom and school climates,
  5. decreases in the use of reactive management practices, and
  6. increases in attendance and academic engagement.

The Short-Vision on Prevention

The short-vision prong emphasizes implementation of immediate and daily prevention practices, that is, what we do every day, all day, and across all school settings to reduce the likelihood of minor and major behavior incidents and increase the probability of prosocial behavior.

Every staff member during every lesson must:

  1. Set challenging and achievable academic and behavior goals for every student.
  2. Model positive examples of the same social skills and behaviors expected from students.
  3. Prompt/cue and recognize desired social behavior at higher rates than are used for negative or norm-violating behavior.
  4. Maximize every minute for successful academic and behavioral engagements.
  5. Continuously and actively supervise all students across all settings at all times.

On an hourly and daily basis, minor behavior incidents (e.g., noises, wandering, off task) should be treated constructively, quickly, and quietly. Incidents of minor disruptive behavior represent teachable moments or opportunities to remind students of the desired behavior and to prompt and reinforce future opportunities to be successful. The process of handling minor problem behaviors should never sacrifice instruction time for any student, and if minor behaviors become chronic, the focus shifts toward a plan that rearranges conditions so that the opportunity to engage in problem behavior is reduced or eliminated.

Every major behavior event (e.g., fighting, intentional inappropriate behavior, harassment, disruptive non-compliance) should be treated as a “bad” habit that has worked for the student in the past and is highly likely under specific situations. Because a bad habit by definition is chronic, habituated, and efficient, solutions must be much more informed and targeted. That is, the intervention must be based on a specific understanding of the triggering and maintaining conditions and development of a specialized intervention that formally cues and rewards desired behavior and carefully eliminates competing cues and rewards for problem behavior. This plan must provide at least hourly implementation schedules, especially in the most likely problem behavior settings, by individuals who are better at doing the intervention than the student is at doing the problem behavior. Daily progress monitoring is required to enable immediate tweaking of the intervention to improve effectiveness and efficiency.

Prevention is More than Practices

Effective implementation of this two-prong approach requires more than careful selection and organization of evidence-based practices. Efficient systems must be in place to support staff implementation.  These systems include strong school and district leadership that is effectively distributed at the classroom, grade level, department, and school levels. In our most challenged schools, effective principals must be instructional leaders and given at least 3–5 years to establish a durable effective and positive school culture. In addition, principals should share and distribute meaningful leadership authority to important teams (e.g., climate committees, behavior support teams, grade level and department teams) for durable implementation capacity. Daily decision-making must be guided by easily accessible and interpretable data and efficient teaming.

The full set of behavior support practices must be organized in an implementable and integrated manner, that is, a multi-tiered continuum of support. Establishment and implementation of this continuum are guided by some simple but important principles:

  1. Carefully define the behavioral needs of classrooms and school-wide settings.
  2. Based on these needs, eliminate practices that are no longer needed or effective and select the best evidence-based practices that have documented good outcomes related to these needs.
  3. Establish data systems based on decision rules for progress monitoring and differentiation of supports.
  4. Align and integrate all practices so that three general support tiers are in place:
    • Tier 1—all students, all staff, all settings;
    • Tier 2—targeted and group implemented; and
    • Tier 3—intensive and individualized interventions.

Concluding Comments

Contemporary school and classroom challenges must be defined, verified, and discussed. However, emphasis must be shifted quickly from rumination to prevention. A prevention-based multi-tiered system of practices requires moment-to-moment, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year engagement. Practice selection and adoption are necessary but insufficient. Equal, if not more, attention must be directed toward systemic or organizational supports (leadership, decision making, support continuum) that enable implementation to be effective, efficient, durable, and relevant. If implementation fidelity is high and sustained, preventing the development and occurrences of our contemporary challenges is thinkable and doable, and effective classroom and school organizations with common vision, language, and experiences are possible.


[1] The preparation of this document was supported in part by the Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports and a grant from the Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education (H326S980003), Project Officer Renee Bradley. Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Education, and such endorsements should not be inferred. For information about the Center, go to www.pbis.org, or for information related to this manuscript, contact George Sugai at George.sugai@uconn.edu.

Special Education Announcement Provides a Lesson in Social Justice

This is a cross-post from ED’s Homeroom Blog


After last week’s announcement of a new effort to address widespread disparities in the treatment of students of color with disabilities, we asked two educators to react to the news, drawing on their own experiences as special education teachers.

Lisa Coates

As a special educator for 17 years, I have long been witness to what civil rights data collections are showing now is pervasive—there is a disproportionately high representation of students of color identified for special education. Additionally, special education students of color face higher risk rates of disciplinary referrals for suspensions, alternative school assignments, and expulsions, which correlate to lower graduation rates.

There’s an irony as education for students with special needs was born out of the civil rights movement. Too often other variables such as language, poverty, assessment practices, and lack of professional development and cultural competence support for teachers have played too big a role, resulting in unnecessary services or students learning in inappropriately restrictive environments.

I remember early in my career proctoring an educational assessment as part of an initial eligibility for a student’s consideration into specialized education. The referral came from a general education teacher who said, “He just isn’t getting the content.” While administering the test, I saw a test filled with cultural biases, and the result was a boy being assigned to a self-contained class unnecessarily. Fortunately that student’s case manager advocated and the case was made for a less restrictive environment. Too many kids don’t have such an advocate.

As the demographics of our nation’s schools become more racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse, we must closely inspect disproportionality to ensure we create equitable learning communities. There are practices that may reduce disproportionality, including pre-referral interventions, family engagement, instructional practices for collaboration in the general curriculum, and professional development, to improve student outcomes.

Josalyn Tresvant

For years there have been documented situations where minority students have experienced inadequate services, low-quality curriculum, and isolation from their nondisabled peers. I taught minority students in both inclusionary and pullout settings at a high-needs school. At one point I serviced 40 students in grades K–5. What drove me was the fact these students and their parents were expecting me do right by those students so they could be successful beyond elementary school. To not do right by them meant they would potentially fall victim to even more dire circumstances related to poverty.

In grades 4–5, I co-taught with the classroom teacher, co-planning and making sure our lessons included strategies to make sure all students in that class were successful. This kept students in the classroom and pushed them to succeed. The results were not only evident in their IEP progress but also on their standardized test data. The most compelling evidence was in their classroom discourse. The level of engagement they had with their peers regarding what they were learning was powerful and the sense of self-confidence they exuded was infectious. We also spent a lot of time educating parents of their rights and how to advocate for their child. We wanted to them to feel empowered and informed on how to access resources or voice concerns about their child’s plan. Reducing disparities for special education students can mean the difference between lifelong success or failure.


Lisa Coates is a veteran special education teacher in Virginia and was a 2010 Classroom Teaching Ambassador Fellow.

Josalyn Tresvant McGhee taught special education in Memphis, Tennessee, for six years and is a current Classroom Teaching Ambassador Fellow.

Building the Team with Your Teen

An OSERS guest blog by Debra Jennings

Deborah Jennings

Debra Jennings is the Project Director for the Center for Parent Information and Resources


When teenagers reach their age of majority, a host of changes can and most likely will take place. For one, reaching the age of majority means that the young person is now considered an adult. In most states, this happens at age 18. The youth now has the same rights as other adults do, including the right to vote, marry, enter into contracts, and make decisions about his or her education, healthcare, and finances. These are big changes, for both the young person and his or her parents. Is everybody ready? Indeed, how do you get ready, especially when the youth has a disability that affects decision making?

The Center for Parent Information and Resources (CPIR) is pleased to connect you with a new series of parent briefs on this very important subject. The series starts with Getting Ready for When Your Teen Reaches the Age of Majority: A Parent’s Guide and continues with tip sheets on getting ready for:

Why is age of majority such an important issue?

Because, bottom line, the age of majority happens whether the teenager is “ready” or not. And it happens whether parents are ready or not! That’s why it’s a good idea for parents to:

  • Take advantage of their child’s growing years (especially ages 10–14) to build skills needed in the future.
  • Connect with their state’s Parent Center as their first stop for information and resources about disability issues in general and transition planning in particular.
  • Foster a team approach that involves their son or daughter.
  • Lay a solid foundation through discussions, guided support and decision-making, respect, and opportunities for their son or daughter to learn the basic skills that an adult needs.

The Age of Majority series offers parents suggestions for doing just that. We’d like to elaborate for a moment on three of these four key suggestions.

1—Start early

Building confidence and decision-making skills takes time and practice. So it’s definitely savvy for parents and educators to begin early to prepare the young person with a disability for the eventuality of reaching the age of majority. Fortunately, there are resources available to help families and schools, many of which are noted in the Age of Majority series.

2—Connect with the state Parent Center

The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) funds a powerful network of Parent Centers (at least one per state) to inform and train parents of children with disabilities so that they have a reliable place to learn about their child’s disability, their rights under the law, and resources in their community, state, and nation. Parent Centers are an excellent source of information about transition planning, offering parent guides, webinars, training workshops, and the like to support parents and youth in preparing for life after high school.

Visit the CPIR Hub to find the Parent Center(s) for your state.

3—Foster a team approach

The Age of Majority series strongly recommends taking a team approach:

  1. to prepare a young person for reaching the age of majority, and
  2. to provide a network of support once adulthood is reached.

How much support a young person might need to live as independently as possible will vary from person to person. But there are many types of support available, from family and friends, to community agencies, to in-home services, and these can be matched to the needs of the individual. The tip sheets include many examples.

To hear an especially evocative and insightful description of how building such a team can make all the difference in the world to the adult life of a son with significant disabilities, take 5 minutes and listen to Ann Turnbull on the subject. You won’t be sorry you did.

In sum

Growing up is natural, it’s inevitable, and it’s exciting. We hope that the Age of Majority tip sheets will help parents and their young person get ready. May all our sons and daughters go forth, make their foolish mistakes despite our warnings, enjoy their triumphs, ask for our help when they need it, and build their lives as independently and satisfyingly as possible.


How the tip sheets were developed

The Age of Majority series was developed in collaboration between three OSEP-funded centers: the National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (NSTTAC), the National Post-School Outcomes Center (NPSO, link after 12/2015), and the Center for Parent Information and Resources. We all are especially pleased that Parent Centers were involved in reviewing each tip sheet and helping to shape the tone and content of the series.

Deborah Jennings
Posted by
Project Director, Center for Parent Information and Resources

WIOA: A Vision to Revitalize the Workforce System

This blog was cross-posted from the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education blog.

Reminder: Public comment period on the 5 proposed notices of rulemaking is now closed.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) aims to increase access to and opportunities for employment, education, training, and support services, particularly for individuals with the greatest barriers to employment. WIOA, which marks the most significant change to the Federal adult education, vocational rehabilitation, and workforce development systems in more than a decade, promotes stronger alignment of workforce, education, vocational rehabilitation, and other human services systems in order to improve the structure and delivery of services to individuals, including adults and youth with disabilities and others who face barriers to employment.

While the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services have always strived to create and expand access to education, training, and employment opportunities for the millions of youth and adults who seek services through their programs, WIOA modernizes and streamlines the workforce development system to offer holistic, wrap around services to support gainful employment in the competitive integrated labor market. WIOA also supports innovative strategies to keep pace with changing economic conditions and calls for improved collaboration among agencies, not just at the State and local levels, but also at the Federal level.

The successful implementation of WIOA will require States and local areas to establish strong partnerships with core programs and other partners in the community, including local educational agencies, in order to successfully serve program participants, workers, and learners. WIOA’s unified and combined state planning provisions support this coordination by requiring a four-year strategy based on an analysis of workforce, employment and unemployment data, labor market trends, and the educational and skills level of a State’s workforce. The strategic planning process will help States align education, employers, and the public workforce system for efficient and effective use of resources. This coordinated planning will also ensure that programs and services are responsive to employer, business, and regional and community needs.

Additionally, the one-stop centers (American Job Centers or AJCs) represent a cornerstone for the alignment and coordination of workforce, education, vocational rehabilitation, and social service programs. WIOA highlights opportunities for core and partner programs— including postsecondary Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, programs under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Second Chance Act—to become a part of the one-stop system. AJCs are encouraged to integrate, as appropriate, intake, case management, and reporting systems, including fiscal and management accountability systems, to improve customer service. WIOA will make it easier for federally funded education, training, and support services to track and tailor services to shared customers at AJCs. As such, more people will be able to enroll in career pathway programs that simultaneously offer relevant basic skills instruction and occupational skills training for in-demand jobs in their local area. The public will also be able to access the necessary social services that provide individuals and families with pathways to self-sufficiency. Furthermore, AJCs will enable employers to identify and hire skilled workers and access other supports, including education and training for their current workforce. WIOA’s emphasis on services to individuals with barriers to employment and on reaching out-of-school youth make it particularly important to ensure that State and local human services agencies actively partner with their colleagues in WIOA implementation.

The transformation of the workforce development system will take time and considerable effort. The Departments are committed to providing guidance and technical assistance to States and local areas to help realize this vision for our shared customers. To that end, the Departments of Labor and Education published five Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRMs) to implement WIOA. The five NPRMs include: a joint NPRM, issued by the Departments of Labor and Education in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services, proposing to implement jointly-administered activities related to unified planning, performance accountability, and the one-stop system; a Department of Labor NPRM proposing to implement DOL-specific activities under titles I and III of WIOA; and three Department of Education NPRMs proposing to implement the requirements of titles II and IV of WIOA. The proposed regulations are designed to: update and improve federal workforce programs that serve workers, job seekers, and employers; strengthen accountability and transparency; increase access to work-based learning tools, such as apprenticeships; and foster more cohesive planning within economic regions.

We had accepted comments on the NPRMs, which can be found at www.regulations.gov, until June 15, 2015 (NOW CLOSED). You can find information on how to use regulations.gov on the site under “Are you new to the site?” See the announcement with docket numbers, an FAQ, a recorded statement by Acting Assistant Secretary Uvin, and a recorded webinar on entering comments.

The Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services, along with States and local providers performing the work on the front lines, can make a difference for those individuals who have the greatest barriers to employment by offering them enhanced access, increased opportunities, and clear pathways to good jobs making self- and family-sustaining wages. Read the Department of Labor’s Training Employment Guidance Letter (TEGL 19-14) to learn more about how we can work collaboratively to revitalize the workforce system.

Guest authors:

Portia Wu is the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training at the U.S. Department of Labor

Johan Uvin is the Acting Assistant Secretary for Career, Technical, and Adult Education at the U.S. Department of Education

Sue Swenson is the Acting Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the U.S. Department of Education

Janet LaBreck is the Commissioner of the Rehabilitation Services Administration at the U.S. Department of Education

Mark Greenberg is the Acting Assistant Secretary for the Administration of Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Posted by
Heidi Silver-Pacuilla is the author of the original Blog post on Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) Blog site at the U.S. Department of Education.

Including Young Children with Disabilities in High-Quality Early Childhood Programs

Notice: Comment Period is Now Closed

The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are proposing to release a policy statement on inclusion of young children with disabilities in high-quality inclusive early childhood programs. It is the purpose of this blog to request comments on the proposed statement. Please review the attached draft policy statement and provide comments no later than 9:00pm EDT, Friday, May 22, 2015 (extended from 6:00pm EDT due to system being down temporarily earlier today).

It is the Departments’ position that all young children with disabilities should have access to inclusive high-quality early childhood programs, where they are provided with appropriate support in meeting high expectations. To further this position, the Departments will release a policy statement on the inclusion of young children with disabilities in early childhood programs.

The policy statement:

  • Provides a definition of inclusion in early childhood programs,
  • Highlights the legal and scientific foundations supporting inclusion, and
  • Provides recommendations to states, local educational agencies (LEAs), schools, and early childhood programs for expanding inclusive high-quality early learning opportunities for all children.

Though this policy statement focuses on including young children with disabilities, it is our shared vision that all Americans be meaningfully included in all facets of society throughout the life course. This begins in early childhood programs and continues into schools, places of employment, and the broader community.

We look forward to receiving your comments by 9:00pm EDT, Friday, May 22, 2015 (extended from 6:00pm EDT due to system being down temporarily earlier today).

Download:

 

 

Posted by
Information Technology Specialist, U.S. Department of Education