a goal and designing a plan (which can also be viewed as solution) to reach that goal.
The plan is designed to be comprehensive, is based on principles of behaviorism, and includes these six components.
1. Prevention: What changes to the context can educators make to avoid the problem?
2. Teaching: What replacement behaviors will educators teach?
3. Recognition or reinforcement: How can teachers provide rewards for the desired behavior?
4. Extinction: How can teachers prevent the undesired behavior from being rewarded?
5. Consequences: What are efficient punishment strategies for the undesired behavior (if data indicate the need for punishment strategies)?
6. Evaluation of implementation and impact: How will teachers measure fidelity and impact (Newton, Horner, et al., 2009)?
Creating a comprehensive solution ensures that there are strategies to prevent the behavior, strategies to teach new replacement behaviors, strategies to reinforce the new behavior and prevent the old behavior from occurring, and strategies to monitor the implementation (that is, fidelity) and impact of the solution. Once teachers develop and implement a solution or plan, the team actively monitors and evaluates the plan during the next step of the PSM.
Plan Evaluation
In step 4, Plan Evaluation, educators answer the question, Did it work? by monitoring the plan’s implementation and impact (Newton, Horner, 2009). During this stage, educators examine the data and make decisions regarding continued use of the plan. If fidelity of implementation is good, educators can then make decisions about continuing, fading out, intensifying, or altering the current plan. If the fidelity is not good, then educators can have discussions about how to improve fidelity, and they continue the plan before they make decisions about its impact.
The PSM provides an organizing framework for educators to identify and solve problems. The four steps allow school teams and individual educators to (1) initially identify a problem, (2) understand the context and reasons the problem is occurring, (3) develop a plan to solve the problem, and (4) monitor the impact and implementation of that plan for the problem (Newton, Horner, et al., 2009; Shinn, 2008a). Table 1.6 illustrates the steps of the PSM.
Table 1.6: PSM Steps
| Step of the PSM | Example |
| 1. Problem Identification | There have been fifteen office referrals (observed level) for inappropriate language or disrespect in the hallway in the last month, and there should be no more than two during that time (expected level). |
| 2. Problem Analysis | A majority of fifth graders are being loud and saying inappropriate or disrespectful things to each other during the transitions to and from lunch each week in order to obtain peer attention. |
| 3. Plan Identification and Implementation | The plan will include: (1) prevention of the problem behavior by reteaching “being respectful” and then asking teachers to stand in hallway and use active supervision to prompt students; (2) teaching the desired behavior by reteaching “being respectful” and teaching students to say hello to each by waving, giving a high five, or saying hello appropriately; (3) recognition or reinforcement of the desired behavior by providing students PBIS tickets for appropriate behavior and saying hello appropriately; (4) extinction of the problem behavior by prompting students to perform an appropriate way of saying hello to each other when loud or inappropriate; (5) using consequences by having students stop and wait until hallways are clear before they can proceed if they display the problem behavior; and (6) evaluation of implementation and impact by tracking impact by examining referrals and tracking implementation by counting the number of teachers who use active supervision during transition times. |
| 4. Plan Evaluation | Meet in one week to examine data on implementation (for example, rating of adherence to the plan on a scale of 1–3) and impact (such as office referrals). |
Problem Solving for Systems Versus Students
Within the context of the PSM, SWPBIS teams can examine problems on a systems level as well as problems on a student level. Systems-level problem solving examines the system as a whole, whereas student-level problem solving focuses on groups of students or individual students. A matrix illustrates how school teams can consider implementation and impact data on both of those levels (see table 1.7). We discuss specific questions and answers for each tier in their respective chapters.
Table 1.7: Problem-Solving Questions Between the Tiers
Summary
SWPBIS is a schoolwide framework designed to improve school climate and discipline while also setting the foundation for academic and social-emotional outcomes (Sailor et al., 2009). The model is based on proactively teaching students schoolwide expectations and is housed in behavioral and instructional principles. The model enlists four key elements to ensure its effectiveness and sustainability—(1) outcomes, (2) practices, (3) systems, and (4) data—and educators use the PSM to solve problems and drive the connection among the key elements. We explore the details of each tier separately within the next several chapters and provide examples of SWPBIS for each of the elements.
2
Tier One
Tier One consists of universal supports provided to every student in the building and is the foundation of SWPBIS (George et al., 2009). Tier One is the behavioral and social-emotional learning curriculum that educators provide to each student. Every student has access to the curriculum and teachers actively instruct the curriculum using instructional principles and behavior theory. When students receive additional supports above and beyond Tier One, they still continue to receive Tier One supports (additional supports supplement Tier One, they don’t supplant it). If there are gaps within Tier One, the additional tiers will be less effective, so it’s important that teams build an effective Tier One before designing and implementing the upper tiers (Greenwood et al., 2008). We summarize Tier One specifics in table 2.1.
Table 2.1: Tier One Summary
| Tier One Is … | Tier One Is Not … |
| Universal supports for all students | Just for a few students nor is it removed when students receive additional support |
| The active teaching and reinforcement of schoolwide expectations | Hoping students learn the schoolwide expectations on their own |
| Use of active feedback and encouragement for students to display the expectations | Ignoring students when they display the expectations because “they should just do them” |
| Use of a range of strategies to discourage undesired behavior | The sole use of punishment when students misbehave, nor is it reactionary and punishment based |
| The foundational piece of the framework | Something that can be skipped |
| Used and supported by all staff | Only used by a few staff |
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