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April - Coffee Talk Tuesday Summary

KOI Education

PBIS/MTSS Lessons Learned This Year

Thank you to everyone who join our last chat of this school year.

We had a wonderful conversation and discussion with all attendees and can’t wait to share some of their reflection with you. Read on to learn about the issues that impact other schools, hear solutions to problems that may also be plaguing your team, and gain inspiration from others who have come before us and conquered some of the challenges that many of us face today.

Please be sure to follow our Events page to register for next year’s webinar and chat series.

All the resource links found below are from https://www.koi-education.com and the PBIS Tier 1, 2, and 3 Manuals available on Amazon and AppleBooks.

Topics and Triumphs!

Tier 1 Foundation

One participant shared that she learned this year that it is important to ensure that schools have a strong Tier 1 PBIS system in place as the foundation for building a full Tier 1, 2, and 3 system overall. Use the graphic below to check if you have all Tier 1 systems, data, and practices in-place and/or complete the Tiered Fidelity Inventory.

  • Tier 1 Graphic (PDF)

  • TFI Manual (PDF)

Team Meetings

Another participant commented on team meetings, stating that it is most important for a team to meet regardless whether they have all the documents and data prepared prior to the meeting. Giving the team grace to understand the time demands on their day and to work in the meeting, pulling the data, and organizing other documentation during the meeting is OK. A district office employee that works directly with school leaders and teams stated that she finds it difficult to manage time when meeting with school teams and the district led teams. This is where using standard Agendas and documenting Minutes can save the day!

Action Plan

A facilitator shared that the use of an action plan to ensure the team members are focused and on-task meeting their individual responsibilities is a key to a successful meeting especially when time to meet is limited. They also shared that it is important for team members to fulfill their roles and not try to do the work of others. This will allow the team to be efficient. When on a team in which all members focused on their role, the team is able to review documentation on students prior to the meeting using an agenda created and sent out by the team leader. The team can then discuss and make decisions about a student in 5 minutes allowing them to meet the needs of that student and more in a limited time.

Reinforcement

Another participant shared that school administrative leaders were tasked with working with their staff so that teachers averaged 10 student recognitions or reinforcements per day.  When the administrative leaders met for their mid-year review, district level evaluators discussed whether the teachers were meeting the 10-recognition goal per day, and if they were not they were held accountable and then developed a plan moving forward to meet the district goal.

  • Reinforcement Matrix - Template (Google Doc) (DOC) 

  • Example video to Teach the Reinforcement System to Staff (Video)

  • Example video to Teach the Reinforcement System to Students (Video)

Discipline and Accountability

Someone shared that they work with a school that is struggling with their Behavior Flowchart and that the school is focused more on using the Flowchart to hold students accountable without following through on all the intervention steps. It’s so important to teach and reteach the adults in the building that discipline and accountability come after teaching and reinforcing the school-wide expectations. It’s just not fair to hold student accountable for expectation that are not regularly taught or acknowledged in a schools. That’s like testing without teaching the skills - not too effective. A facilitator shared that it may be helpful to work with teachers and have them self-regulate prior to implementing the minor behavior interventions (of the Behavior Flowchart) with a student to ensure that they are focused on the function of the behavior prior to documenting the problem behavior. Consider coaching teachers to reteach the expectation and skill they want the student to demonstrate and potentially have the student reflect on why they exhibited the minor behavior infraction in the first place. Get to the root of the problem.

District Support

District leadership is critical to the success of PBIS in schools in order for them to build, maintain, and sustain a PBIS/MTSS system. This point was made by several participants who also shared examples of the support a district can provide. Research backs up this claim and there are several studies that show how the success of schools is tied to systematic planning and support from district leadership including: funding, policy, political support, training and coaching capacity, and evaluation support. Everyone conceded that it is a challenge to get all administrators at a school or district on the same page with PBIS implementation. That’s where a tool like the TFI or DSFI comes in - these evaluations look at fidelity of implementation rather than passing judgement or personal opinions.

Team work makes the PBIS dream work!

Reboot, Refresh or Revitalize

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