Positive Behavior Support
The purpose of the Colorado School-wide Positive Behavior Support (PBS) initiative is to establish and maintain effective school environments that maximize academic achievement and behavioral competence of all learners.
Components of this approach:
- Administrative leadership
- Team-based implementation
- Define and teach behavioral expectations
- Acknowledge and reward appropriate behavior
- Monitor and correct behavioral errors
- Uses data for decision making
- Builds parent and community collaboration
Program characteristics:
- Common approach to discipline
- Positively stated expectations for all students and staff
- Procedures for teaching the expectations
- Continuum of procedures for encouraging demonstration and maintenance of positive behavior expectations
- Continuum of procedures for discouraging rule-violating behavior
- Procedures for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the discipline system on a regular and frequent basis
Once the program themes, expectations and behaviors have been introduced and taught, staff and students are surveyed to see if they understand the concepts. This provides a baseline of information to gauge the success of the implementation and understanding of the PBS initiative.
School-wide rules and expectations in different settings
Each school sets up its own expectations for student behavior. The behavioral expectations look different in different settings. Expectations for behavior are created for areas such as study areas, common areas, cafeteria, parking lot, in rest-rooms and in the classroom. An example of how the PBS approach is used to develop school-wide rules and expectations within a high school cafeteria:
At Mountain View High School, the slogan is POWER, which stands for Pride, Ownership, Work, Effort and Respect.
POWER in a cafeteria may look like:
Pride - Students leave the area better than they found it.
Ownership - Students put trash in appropriate places.
Work - Students clean up after themselves.
Effort - Students use inside voices; remind others to pick up after themselves.
Respect - Students use etiquette and manners.
Outcomes:
With PBS
- Each school must have 80 percent buy-in from staff
- Staff and parent participation
- Schools are given the flexibility to design programs to suit their school climate and culture
- The program can work alongside other behavioral programs
- Staff involvement in all aspects of the program, particularly in defining appropriate behavioral expectations The schools participating in the program are at various stages of implementation.