State hails districts for positive behavior support

Third annual institute gives educators the next steps

Nearly 800 classroom and special education teachers, school counselors, social workers, parents, principals and state officials participated in this year’s Missouri School-Wide Positive Behavior Support (MO SW-PBS) Summer Institute. School districts new to SW-PBS learned to implement the program and experienced schools selected from a variety of sessions so that they can more fully implement the program. Additionally, Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education honored districts that achieved certain levels of positive behavior support. 

“On the first day, schools met with their regional consultant and created a plan,” says Mary Richter, one of the institute’s planner and Missouri’s coordinator for SW-PBS. “District teams attended sessions based on their demonstrated level of SW-PBS implementation and future goals.”

Regional consultants provide a critical role in SW-PBS’s successful implementation at the district and school level. Consultants provide support to educators and school personnel and are funded by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The number of Missouri school districts to implement SW-PBS has increased so dramatically that the number of consultants increased from 10 to 17 for the upcoming, 2008-09 academic year, according to Richter.

“Consultants help districts develop a plan for their schools,” she says of Missouri’s goal to help all districts fully implement the SW-PBS program. “At the institute, they help school personnel determine which session will share information that is relevant to their school’s specific goals.”

A selection of Summer Institute sessions included:

• Celebrating and Connection of Families and School-Wide PBS
• Response to Intervention and School-Wide PBS
• Working your way up the Triangle with Systems, Data and Practices
• Middle Schools and High Schools, What Works
• Going to Scale: Why to implement and how to make it work districtwide

“SW-PBS makes schools safer and more productive,” Richter says. “It allows students to be more successful, staff to be more valued, and overall creates a socially and culturally improved environment.”

The institute’s keynote speakers included Rob Horner, professor of special education at the University of Oregon, Tim Lewis, associate dean of the special education department at the University of Missouri, and Steven Evans, professor of psychology at James Madison University.

Next year’s Missouri School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Summer Institute will be held in Columbia, Missouri, during the first week of June, 2009.