Pbss Positive Behavioral Support Systems

PBSS

Positive Behavioral Support Systems (PBSS) are systemic, school-wide approaches to student management that are integrated into a school's strategic planning and school improvement process. Contribute to the Discussion by responding to the guiding question.

How will/should a Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS) look different or be developed and implemented differently at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels?

A Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS) does not focus on a modification of individual students with problematic behaviors; rather it focuses on the environment and tries to identify environmental factors that can make behavioral interventions more or less effective. Educators should first seek to perform a functional behavioral assessment to determine if there are factors that can explain various student behaviors. Positive behavior support plans can be defined as a broad set of strategies meant to redesign environments in such a way that these undesirable behaviors are prevented.

Because different schools at different levels, elementary, middle school, and high school, will have different environments. Therefore each school will have to customize their analysis to the particular environment that is present. Positive behavior support systems are extremely effective and can be used also in a wide variety of settings different settings in non-classroom settings such as hallways and restrooms. Instead of using a piecemeal approach of individual behavioral management plans, a continuum of positive behavior support for all students within a school is implemented in areas including the classroom and non-classroom settings (OSEP, 2013).

Data Analysis

Given the data set, there are many different factors that can be analyzed in accordance to a Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS) approach. The first item in the data set that stands out upon the initial analysis is the "Disorderly Conduct" incidences over a three-year period. There is a disproportionately higher amount of these incidences for black males that the other ethnic groups or demographics.

The same can be said about the rate of insubordination actions among this demographic. However, the insubordination rate is much higher than any of the other factors that are recorded in this data set. It represents the most common disciplinary recommendation among all the groups included in the analysis. The next two most common forms of discipline incidents are disorderly conduct and student assault.

1. Insubordination

2. Disorderly Conduct

3. Student Assault

Insubordination showed a decreasing trend, disorderly conduct showed a mixed trend but was highest in the most recent year, and student assaults have been steadily increasing.

Modeling and reinforcement of positive behavior is important during a student's educational experience. Teaching appropriate behaviors and then rewarding individual students for following the desired behaviors has proven to be a much more positive approach than waiting for misbehavior to occur before taking action. It is interesting to note that the black male demographic is also the most prone to receive corporal punishments; however this rate has also been increasing dramatically.

This rate is also significantly higher for all males in general which indicates that there is some gender bias in the issuance of this form of punishment. It is recommended that different forms of punishment are used other than corporal punishment. This form of punishment is rising significantly in just one demographic will other forms of punishment, such as alternative learning classrooms, are being implemented on a lesser basis.

The bullying incident rate is low. This could either mean that the school is doing a really good job in deterring bullying or that bullying is taking place but then rarely identified. Further investigation should be pursued to determine which case is most accurate. It is suspected that the latter case might more accurate since cases of bullying generally go unidentified and unpunished. There should also further research to collect information about the "other" category. There has been a dramatic increase in the three-year period although the overall rate is still fairly low. These cases should therefore be examined on a case by case basis to determine if there is an invention that would be appropriate and what lies behind the increase.

The most common form of punishment was the out-of-school suspension followed by in-school detentions and then corporal punishment. The use of out-of-school suspensions has increased dramatically over the years while reaching a total of 130 disciplinary actions in 2006. The use of in-school suspension dropped significantly from 2004 to 2005 but seemingly plateaued in 2006. The use of corporal punishments has been on the decrease over the same period. In my opinion the use of corporal punishment should be a cause for concern and counterproductive overall in a school setting.