What is Secondary School SW-PBS
Have you ever been in a situation in your adult life where you did not know what behavior was expected of you? Maybe a supervisor assumed that, as an adult, you should intuitively know what to do in different situations. Or, perhaps your supervisor went over the expectations once, and held you accountable for following all policies and procedures from that point forward.
Now consider your students. They may have six or seven classes per day with six or seven different teachers, and six or seven different sets of behavioral expectations and procedures. Some of their teachers take time to teach them the behavioral expectations and procedures, and some of their teachers assume that students should know how to behave in school by the time they are in secondary school.
If we as adults need a predictable environment where we know what is expected of us, don’t our secondary school students deserve the same?
Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support is a framework that ensures students know the expected behaviors in all settings, thereby creating a positive and predictable learning environment for all students. The Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support framework is the same, regardless of the ages of the students served by the school. All schools need to:
- Define Expected behavior in all settings
- Teach and reteach expected behavior
- Reinforce expected behavior
- Consistently correct unexpected behavior
However, secondary schools will want to implement these practices in ways that take into account the ages and maturity levels of their students, as well as address contextual factors unique to secondary schools, such as the size and complexity of many of these schools.
Student Age and Maturity
Secondary school students are mature enough to take ownership and responsibility over what happens at school. How can you leverage student leadership and voice as you develop your SW-PBS Framework? Consider how student voice and leadership can be leveraged as you develop the following:
- Lessons
- Communication
- Reinforcement
- Goal setting and data
- Strategies for responding to unexpected behaviors
School Size and Complexity
Secondary schools are often large, complex organizations with large numbers of staff and students. Implementing an initiative like SW-PBS in a large middle or high school can feel like steering an ocean liner. How can you train and support a large and diverse staff as they implement the practices of SW-PBS? How can you get all staff members to use common language and procedures as they teach expectations, reinforce expectations, and correct unexpected behaviors? How can you get all staff to buy into a common disposition and approach to discipline?
The intent of this and the associated pages is to provide you with resources to address these problems of practice. This site is a work in progress. Be sure to check back periodically, as we will continuously update these resources as they become available.