1. District Leadership in Implementing School-wide PBIS
Rob Horner
University of Oregon
OSEP TA-Center on PBIS

2. Goals Define lessons learned about implementing PBIS across districts.
Key implications for district leadership

3. Main Messages
Sustained and High Fidelity Implementation of SWPBIS requires active District Support.
Especially for Tiers II and III
Student = unit of impact
Schools = unit of intervention
District = unit of implementation

4. Schools/ Classrooms/ Families
State/ Region
District
Schools/ Classrooms/ Families
District Capacity Assessment:
Fixsen, Blase, Duda et al

5. Effective Implementation
Themes Affecting Education: Multi-tiered Systems, Evidence-based Practices, Implementation Science
Evidence-based Practices
Performance Assessment (Fidelity)
Coaching
Training
Selection
Systems Intervention
Facilitative Administration
Decision Support Data System
Competency Drivers
Effective Implementation
Organization Drivers
Adaptive
Technical
Leadership Drivers
Multi-tiered Systems of Support
Implementation Science

6. Local School/District Teams/Demonstrations
Visibility
Political
Support
Funding
Policy
Leadership Team
Active Coordination
Training
Coaching
Behavioral
Expertise
Evaluation
Local School/District Teams/Demonstrations
Sugai et al.,

7. Sages of Implementation
School Level Implementation Takes Time: 2 – 4 Years
EXPLORATION
INSTALLATION
INITIAL IMPLEMENTATION
FULL IMPLEMENTATION
Sages of Implementation
How long at a district level?
How long at a state level?
How long at a national level?

8. Implementation Drivers
Common features of successful supports to help make full and effective uses of a wide variety of innovations
Implementation Drivers

9. Reliable Student Benefits
Consistent Use of
Educational Innovations
Interventions Meet
Implementation
Implementation Drivers
Performance Assessment (fidelity)
Systems
Intervention
Facilitative
Administration
Decision Support
Data System
Organization Drivers
Coaching
Training
Competency Drivers
Integrated & Compensatory
Selection
Adaptive
Technical
Leadership Drivers
© Fixsen & Blase, 2008 9

10. Improvement Cycles
© 2012 Karen A. Blase and Dean L. Fixsen

11. Stages of Implementation
Steve Goodman
Focus
Stage
Description
Exploration/ Adoption
Decision regarding commitment to adopting the program/practices and supporting successful implementation.
Installation
Set up infrastructure so that successful implementation can take place and be supported. Establish team and data systems, conduct audit, develop plan.
Initial Implementation
Try out the practices, work out details, learn and improve before expanding to other contexts.
Full Implementation
Expand the program/practices to other locations, individuals, times- adjust from learning in initial implementation.
Continuous Improvement/ Regeneration
Make it easier, more efficient. Embed within current practices.
Should we do it!
Work to do it right!
Implementation is not an event
A mission-oriented process involving multiple decisions, actions, and corrections
Work to do it better!

12. Lessons Learned for Districts Implementing SWPBIS
Effective Leadership Matters
Start by establishing commitment
Lead don’t drive: Use team-based change process
Invest in prevention first
Create a positive social culture
Avoid rewarding problem behavior
Implement Evidence-based Practices at all three Tiers
Universal (all students, all times, all locations)
Targeted (efficient interventions for at-risk students)
Intensive (individualized interventions for those students with the most intense problem behavior)
Use on-going data collection for active decision-making
Establishing sustainable systems/supports
School PBIS handbook
Job descriptions

13. Lesson #1: Effective Leadership Matters
Gallop poll
Buckingham and Coffman, 2002
McIntosh et al., 2012
Perceptions of Contextual Features Related to Implementation and Sustainability of School-Wide Positive Behavior Support
Coffey & Horner, 2012
The sustainability of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports

14. “What the Worlds Greatest Managers Do Differently”
“What the Worlds Greatest Managers Do Differently” Buckingham & Coffman 2002, Gallup Interviews with 1 million workers, 80,000 managers, in 400 companies.
Create working environments where employees:
1. Know what is expected
2. Have the materials and equipment to do the job correctly
3. Receive recognition each week for good work.
4. Have a supervisor who cares, and pays attention
5. Receive encouragement to contribute and improve
6. Can identify a person at work who is a “best friend.”
7. Feel the mission of the organization makes them feel like their jobs are important
8. See the people around them committed to doing a good job
9. Feel like they are learning new things (getting better)
10. Have the opportunity to do their job well.

15. Perceptions of Contextual Features Related to Implementation and Sustainability of School-Wide Positive Behavior Support
Kent McIntosh, PhD, Larissa K. Predy, MA, Gita Upreti, PhD,
Amanda E. Hume, MA, Mary G. Turri, BA, and Susanna Mathews, MA (2012)
SUBSIT Item : 0 = low importance 5 = high importance
(Four Highest Items for Implementation of SWPBIS)
Implement
SWPBIS
Sustain
The school administrators (building principal or vice principal) actively support SWPBIS
4.90
A school administrator regularly attends and participates in SWPBIS team meetings
4.80
4.78
The school administrators describe SWPBIS as a top priority for the school
4.76
The school administrators ensure that the SWPBIS team has regularly scheduled time to meet
4.73

16. Lesson #2: Establish Commitment by Sharing Data and Collecting Staff Perceptions
Focus first on student behavior.
“Are we satisfied with the behavior of students in our school?”
Summarize and share student behavior data
ODR/100 students/ Day (Elem Mean = .22; Middle Mean = .44)
Focus on practices and interventions that are evidence-based.
Are we selecting practices that work?
“Are we doing what research indicates is most helpful and effective for improving student behavior?”

17. Practices & Interventions that are evidence-based
A Practice is evidence-based when
The specific procedures are operationally defined
The intervention defines:
WHO should benefit,
WHERE the intervention should be used,
PERSONNEL requirements, and
WHAT the expected outcomes are.
AND
There is peer reviewed research documenting that use of the intervention is functionally related to change in valued outcomes.

18. Lesson #3: Lead don’t drive: Build capacity
Effective administrators make everyone else around them more effective than they would otherwise be.
If you “do it all” you will be less likely to have an impact, and the impact you have will be less likely to sustain.
Give your team vision, time, training, resources, and clearly defined outcome measures.
Rotate chair of meetings
Operate with an agenda, and minutes
Review data at every meeting

19. Priorities should make a difference in how your allocate staff time
Don’t add new initiatives without identifying what you will stop doing.
Use faculty time strategically
Focus the energy of your faculty
No more than three major goals
Do each job well
Two mantras
Never stop doing what works
Always look for the smallest change that will have the largest impact.
Trying to do “Everything” too often results in accomplishing “Nothing.”

20. Working Smarter when Adopting New Initiatives
If we adopt “X” (PBIS) what two things will we stop doing to create the time/resources?
Does “X” (PBIS) align with our most important goals for students?
Does “X” (PBIS) fit with what we already do well?
Does “X” (PBIS) have high probability of delivering the expected outcomes (is there research?)
Do we have the capacity to implement “X” (PBIS) with high fidelity and sustainability? (training + coaching+ feedback systems)

21. Lesson #4: Invest in Prevention (Primary/Universal PBIS as a foundation)
Proactive Behavior Support for All
Common language
Common vision for what is acceptable
Common experience
Students and Families must participate in building an positive social culture.
Students value an environment that is predictable, positive, consistent, fair, safe.
Students will resist an environment that is perceived as punitive, capricious, controlling

22. Effective Education: Effective education is a collaboration between schools, students and families
Schools/ Faculty
Students
Families

23. Academic Engagement
Students
Families
School
Effective Schools

24. Families Families Partnership with families
What three things could most families do that would make the biggest positive impact on student educational success?
Options
Show interest
(ask how the day went)
Help with homework
(time, place, support, knowing)
Communication with school
(events, needs, what is working, and what is not working)

25. Define School-wide Expectations for Social Behavior
Identify 3-5 Expectations
Short statements
Positive Statements (what to do, not what to avoid doing)
Memorable
Examples:
Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Safe, Be Kind, Be a Friend, Be-there-be-ready, Hands and feet to self, Respect self, others, property, Do your best, Follow directions of adults

26. Create Effective Learning Environments
Predictable
Consistent
Positive
Safe

29. Predictable Consistent Positive Safe Low High 1 2 3 4 5
Action: Rate your school culture 1. Use a student perspective 2. Use a staff perspective
Low High
Predictable
Consistent
Positive
Safe

30. Primary/Universal PBIS “Establish a positive social culture”
Create a school environment where:
Student expectations are defined
Student expectations are taught
Student expectations are acknowledged
Student behavioral errors have immediate and consistent consequences
Faculty and staff behavior is positive, predictable and consistent
Data are gathered, summarized and used for decision-making on a regular cycle.

31. Lesson #5: Create a positive setting
Establish multiple and on-going strategies for acknowledging appropriate behavior.
A School Culture is POSITIVE when the STUDENTS perceive it as positive, NOT when we say it is positive.
A positive environment is characterized by at least 5 positive interactions for every correction.
Glenn Latham, Bud Fredericks
Link individual acknowledgement to overall benefit of others.
Dispel myth that rewards are ineffective or detrimental to student “intrinsic motivation.”
Make rewards age and context appropriate

32. Are Rewards Dangerous?
“…our research team has conducted a series of reviews and analysis of (the reward) literature; our conclusion is that there is no inherent negative property of reward. Our analyses indicate that the argument against the use of rewards is an overgeneralization based on a narrow set of circumstances.”
Judy Cameron, 2002
Cameron, 2002
Cameron & Pierce, 1994, 2002
Cameron, Banko & Pierce, 2001

33. “What the Worlds Greatest Managers Do Differently”
“What the Worlds Greatest Managers Do Differently” Buckingham & Coffman 2002, Gallup Interviews with 1 million workers, 80,000 managers, in 400 companies.
Create working environments where employees:
1. Know what is expected
2. Have the materials and equipment to do the job correctly
3. Receive recognition each week for good work.
4. Have a supervisor who cares, and pays attention
5. Receive encouragement to contribute and improve
6. Can identify a person at work who is a “best friend.”
7. Feel the mission of the organization makes them feel like their jobs are important
8. See the people around them committed to doing a good job
9. Feel like they are learning new things (getting better)
10. Have the opportunity to do their job well.

34. Activity for Next Faculty Meeting
How do we acknowledge the positive social behavior of students?
1. Individual students
2. Groups/Classrooms
3. Whole school
Stop students in the hallway and ask:
Do you know the expectations in the school?
What do they mean for what you do here?
Has anyone acknowledged you for doing things well during the past two weeks?

35. Avoid the trap of rewarding problem behavior
Negative reinforcement is alive and well.
Escaping something unpleasant is a reward.
Unpleasant
Events
Escape from
Unpleasant
Events
Problem
Behavior
Reprimand/Failure Skip School No Reprimand/Failure

36. Lesson #6: Invest in Intensive Supports (Tier II, III)
Establish the organizational capacity to support students with more severe problem behavior.
The three areas of “knowledge” needed by a team.
Bennazi et al., (2006)
Knowledge about student
Knowledge about context
Knowledge about behavioral theory
The importance of understanding “function” of behavior.
Sheldon Loman and Kathleen Strickland-Cohen (2013)
Typical school personnel can assess and manage “Basic” individual behavior challenges.

37. School-wide PBS
Establishing additional supports for students with more intense needs

38. Lesson #7: Collect and use Data for Active Decision-Making
Give each team concrete measures that they can use to determine if they are successful.
Measure use of practices:
Are we doing what we want to be doing?
Team Checklist
Benchmark of Quality
EBS Survey
SET
PBIS Implementation Inventory
Measure impact on valued outcomes
Office discipline referrals
Attendance
Suspension/Expulsion rates
Student academic achievement
Student Individual Intensive Supports

39. PBIS Implementation Inventory

40. PBIS Implementation Inventory

41. Total Office Discipline Referrals as of January 10

43. Transforming Data into Information
Look first at your patterns (tell the story)
Level, Trend
Peaks
Match data to current perceptions
Compare your data
With national median
With last year
With what your staff/students/ families want

44. SWIS summary 2012-13 (Majors Only) 5429 schools; 2,714,421 students; 1,924,594 ODRs
Grade Range
Number of Schools
Mean Enrollment per school
Mean
ODRs per 100 stud/ school day
Median ODRs per 100 per stud/ school day
25th Percentile
ODR/100/ school day
75th Percentile
K-6
3321
451
.32 (.38)
.21
.10
.39
6-9
985
614
.58 (.76)
.40
.22
.69
9-12
503
805
.69 (.70)
.49
.27
.89
PreK-8
297
445
.49 (.56)
.32
.15
.60
PreK-12 74
338
.81 (1.30)
.44
.20
.80

45. Elementary School with 150 Students
4/4/2019
Questions to Ask
What is happening?
What is typical?
What is possible?
What is needed?
Elementary School with 150 Students
We want to review the trend, peaks in problems, and compare our average with the national summary data median per day per 100 students.
(red line = median, purple line= 75th percentile, bluish line 25th percentile)
Newton, J. S., Todd, A. W., Algozzine, K., Horner, R. H., & Algozzine, B. (2009). The Team Initiated Problem Solving (TIPS) Training Manual. Educational and Community Supports, University of Oregon, unpublished training manual.
Newton, J. S., Todd, A. W., Algozzine, K., Horner, R. H., & Algozzine, B

48. Lesson #8: Sustainable Implementation
Establish the policies, systems, tools and documentation:
To make implementation easier in subsequent years
To make implementation a continuous process of adaptation and improvement
To make implementation process driven, not person dependent.
Schedule of activities
Regular assessment and adaptation
School Handbook
Lesson plans
Teaching Schedule
Student/Faculty Evaluation

49. Data need not be a four-letter word
Using data for decision-making versus evaluation
Decision-cycles
Weekly
Monthly
Annual
Plan
Compare
Perform
Measure

50. Summary
District Leadership is essential for successful and sustained implementation of PBIS.
Anticipate, Support, Assess, Adapt.