Introduction to School-Wide

Positive Behavior for Red Bank Elementary

“Classroom order is a precondition for teaching and learning.”

Steven Brint, 1998Sociology ProfessorUniversity of California Riverside

“Discipline should be seen and used as a form of instruction.”

Ruby K. Payne (2003)A Framework for Understanding Poverty

Children today are tyrants.

They contradict their parents,

gobble their food,

and tyrannize their teachers.

Socrates, 470-399 B.C.

The one factor that affects staff morale, job satisfaction, and building climate more than any other is classroom and building-wide discipline.

Discipline problems are teachers’ number-one complaint about their

jobs (Zehm & Kottler; 1993)

The public judges the effectiveness of a school by its management of student behavior (Marzano; 2003)

Whether or not you believe you can control student behaviors, you are right!

In a study reviewing 11,000 pieces of research that spanned 50 years, Wang, Haertel, and

Walberg (1993/1994) identified 28 factors that influence student learning; the most important was

classroom management.

During most of its twenty-two year existence, the Annual Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools has identified "lack of discipline" as the most

serious problem facing the nation's educational system.

80-15-5 Principle: 80% of students consistently follow the rules, 15% occasionally break the rules, and 5% often break the rules (Curwin & Mendler; 1998)

• Focus must be on 15% of these fence-rider kids, who can be our best-behaved or worst behaved students

• Much of their behavior depends on the teacher’s style and the general school culture (e.g., expectations)

• Other 5% encompasses particularly difficult students, such as bullies and those with anger management issues, ODD, ADHD, ED, etc.

• PBSIS frameworks are designed to target that 15%, while providing positive recognition to the 80%and providing us with additional strategies in serving that 5%

Important Concept…

The PBSIS Partnership

• PBSIS is a collaboration between the New Jersey Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs and the Boggs Center at UMDNJ to support a PBSIS state team for training and technical assistance to targeted districts.

Goal of the PBSIS Initiative

• To support the inclusion of students with disabilities within general education programs by developing the capacity of schools to create environments that encourage and support pro-social student behavior at the school-wide, classroom, and individual student levels using current, research validated practices in positive behavior support

PBSIS Objectives

• Increase the capacity of the school:– to support students with disabilities in general

education programs and settings– Promote school connectedness and a positive

climate

• Reduce the number of– students referred for special education services;

– office discipline referrals and suspensions

– students who receive repeated office discipline referrals and suspensions.