Including Students with
Disabilities in Your PBIS
Implementation and Data
Marlene Gross-Ackeret, WI RtI Center/PBIS Network
Dana McConnell, WI RtI Center/PBIS Network
Agenda
 Introductions
 Outcomes for the day
 PBIS Overview
 Principles behind PBIS
 Make connection to SwD

 Data
 How are you collecting data?
 Looking at data?
 Using Data?
 What are you missing?
APBS Info on History
 Practices
 Systems view



For ALL
Belief System/Culture
District level support
structures

UDL
 Review the Principles of UDL
 Link to CRP & increase in
engagement
 Link connections to PBIS
 Next Steps……..
Outcomes for the Session
 History of PBIS as it connects to SwD
 Research and rationale
 Reflection on current practices
 Understanding of benefits for ALL students
and staff
 Strategies to meet the diverse needs of our
students
 Next steps in moving forward
We Know…….
 To improve the academic success of
our children, we must also improve
their social success.
 Academic and social failures are
reciprocally and inextricably related.
“Viewed as outcomes, achievement and behavior are
related; viewed as causes of each other, achievement
and behavior are unrelated. In this context, teaching
behavior as relentlessly as we teach reading or other
academic content is the ultimate act of prevention,
promise, and power underlying PBIS and other
preventive interventions in America’s schools.”
Algozzine, Wang, & Violette (2011, p. 16)
What do we know about school discipline
referrals and SWD?
 Students with disabilities tend to be over-
represented in school discipline (Cooley, 1995,
Fabelo et al., 2011; Kresmien, Leone, & Achilles,
2006; Rausch % Skiba, 2006; SRI International,
2006; Zhang, Katsiyannus, & Herbst, 2004).
Educational Outcomes for Students
w/Disabilities
 Students w/disabilities are almost 2X as likely to be
suspended from school as nondisabled students, with the
highest rates among black children with disabilities.
 13% of students w/ disabilities in kindergarten through
12th grade were suspended during the 2009-10 school
year, compared to 7% of students without disabilities.
 Among black children with disabilities, the rate was
much higher: one out of four were suspended at least
once that school year.
Department of Ed.; The New York Times, August 7, 2012
Educational Outcomes for Students with
EBD
 40-60% drop out of high school (Wagner, 1991, 1996; Wagner,
Kutash, Duchnowski, & Epstein, 2005)
 Experience poorer academic performance than Students
with SLD (Lane, Carter, Pierson & Glaeser, 2006)
 10-25% enroll in post-secondary education (compared to
53% of typical population) (Bullis & Cheney, 1999)
 High rated if unemployment/underemployment postschool (Bullis & Cheney, 1999; Kortering, Hess & Braziel, 1996,
Wagner 1991; Wehman, 1996)
 High rates of MH challenges, poverty, incarceration
(Alexander, et al., 1997; Kortering, et al., Lee and Burkham, 1992,
Wagner 1992)
Youth with EBD . . .
 Disengaged from school/family/community
 Most likely disability group to be educated in a
segregated setting
 Highest rates of disciplinary infractions
 Perceived by teachers as having significantly lower
levels of social competence and school adjustment
(Lane, Carter, Pierson, & Glaeser, 2006)
Historical Development of PBIS
 During the 1980s, a need was identified for improved
selection, implementation, and documentation of effective
behavioral interventions for students with EBD. (Greshan,
1991; Sugai & Horner, 1999; Walker et al., 1996)
 Researchers at the University of Oregon began a series of
applied demonstrations, research studies, and evaluation
projects.
 Results: greater attention directed toward prevention,
research-based practices, data-based decision making,
school-wide systems, explicit social skills instruction, teambased implementation and professional development. (Sugai
& Horner, 2002; Horner, Sugai, Anderson, 2010)
Historical Development of PBIS cont’d
 Reauthorization of IDEA in 1997 - grant to establish Center
on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports to
disseminate and provide technical assistance to schools on
evidence based practices for improving supports for
students with EBD.
 PBIS is the marriage of behavioral theory, behavioral
analysis, positive behavior supports, and prevention and
implementation science developed to improve how schools
select, organize, implement, and evaluate behavioral
practices in meeting the needs of ALL students.
(Sugai et al, 2000)
Social Competence &
Academic Achievement
OUTCOMES
Supporting
Decision
Making
Supporting
Staff Behavior
PRACTICES
Supporting
Student Behavior
Without Problem Solving
Special Education
Sea of Ineligibility
General Education
Bridging the Gap
Amount of Resources
Needed to Solve Problem
General +
Intensive
Resources
General +
Supplemental
Resources
General Resources
Intensity of Problem
Systems View
 What is the culture of your building?
 Is there a belief that SwD should be included in our schoolwide
system/data
 Are we ALL working towards the same mission?
 What are our non-negotiables in order to reach our
vision?
Healthy School Culture
“Educators have an unwavering belief in the ability of
all of their students to achieve success, and they pass
that belief on to others in overt and covert ways.
Educators create policies and procedures and adopt
practices that support their belief in the ability of every
student.”
- Kent D. Peterson in Cromwell, 2002.
Cultural Change
“Structural change that is not supported by cultural
change will eventually be overwhelmed by the culture,
for it is in the culture that any organization finds
meaning and stability.”
Schlechty, Shaking Up the Schoolhouse:
How to Support and Sustain Educational Innovation (2001), p. 52
Hard Facts
1. Human Beings are Complex!
2. You can’t hold people accountable for what
you haven’t made explicit.
3. A highly frustrated staff is a highly
unproductive staff.
Dr. Anthony Muhammed, August 2013
District Level Support
Structures Needed for Sustainability…
 District structures must be in place
in order to support your
PBIS implementation!
Implementation Blueprint
Funding
Visibility
Political
Support
Policy
District Leadership Team
(Coordination)
Training
Capacity
Coaching
Capacity
Evaluation
Local School / District
Implementation
Demonstrations
Expertise
District Vision & Principles
to Guide Planning
•Give priority to prevention
•Focus on whole school & community
•Give priority to evidence-based practices
•Lead with a team
•Emphasize data-based evaluation
Common System Elements: Behavior &
Academics
 Effective use of teaming
 Accessing universal data components
 Progress monitoring
 Utilizing effective interventions
 Collecting, using and making data
decision rules
Sugai (2009)
System Change
“For every increment of performance
I demand from you, I have an equal
responsibility to provide you with
the capacity to meet that
expectation.”
(R. Elmore, 2002)
Key Expectations of District
Administrators
 Buy-in of staff
 Align current practices that are functions of RtI
 Provide practical models
 Recognize and vocalize the relationship between RtI,
CRP, UDL, and student achievement
 Develop common language
Key Expectations of District
Administrators continued
 Provide technology and other support important to
implementation,




Fiscal
Data Collection Tools
Core and Intervention Instructional Materials
Training for Analyzing Data
 Align and support professional development
 Provide structured feedback
 Create structures within your system that allow
building administrators and staff opportunities to
collaborate and share best practices
School
Leadership Team
Trained
+
District
Leadership
Support
Assist with
interpretation of data
Failed
Systematic
planning
Initiative
Sustainable
Change
Follow up
Data Audit
*Behavior Data
*ODRs per day per mo.
*By behavior
*By time of day
*By location
*By infraction
*Other including M/m
*Group, etc.
*Attendance
*EE or LRE
*Detentions
*Suspensions I/O
*Expulsions
*Academic data per
group/individual
*Etc.
Reflect on Current Practices
 What are your current practices for teaching
behavioral expectations?

What about for SwD’s?
 Are SwD’s included in your schoolwide discipline
data?
 Do you capture data differently for SwD’s?
 Do you have the same behavioral expectations for
your SwD’s?
Think about this……..
 Academics:
CCSS,
CCEE = Smarter Balanced
 Behavior:
Behavior
Matrix = ODR’s
How do you disaggregate
your data?
Main Ideas
•Build “decision systems” not “data systems”
•Use data in “decision layers”
–Is there a problem? (overall rate of ODR)
–Localize the problem
–(location, problem behavior, students, time of day)
–Get specific. Do not speak in code.
•Do not drown in the data
•It’s “OK” to be doing well
•Be efficient
Main Ideas cont’d
• Do we have a problem?
• Refine the description of the problem?
•
What behavior, Who, Where, When, Why
• Test hypotheses
• “I think the problem on the playground is due to
Eric”
•
•
“ We think the lunch period is too long”
“We believe the end of ‘block schedule” is used poorly”
• Define how to monitor if solution is effective
We can’t include SWD in our data!
 SWD will skew our data
 We have this one kid who . . .
 We will look bad when we present data to the School
Board
 If we keep track of every thing he/she does, that’s all
we would have time to do
 Others?
ALL Students
“Equality means we don’t find a place for her; we
make this the place for her.” (Rob Horner, 2013)
 The single largest reason:
students are moved
social behavior
teachers leave
social behavior
Key Concept
Putting outcomes for
students with IEP’s
into the context of
schools as systems to
educate and support
ALL students.
Universal Design for
Learning (UDL)
Universal Design for Learning
Is
what?
A scientifically valid framework
Does
what?
Provides multiple means of access,
assessment, and engagement and
removes barriers in instruction
that
To
For
what?
achieve academic and
behavioral success
for all
Universal Design for Learning
 Reduces barriers
 Meets the wide range of needs of all learners
 One size fits all approach is not effective
 Inspired from universal design in architecture
Universal Design
 “Consider the needs of the broadest possible range of
users from the beginning” Ron Mace, Architect,
Universal Design
 If you design for those in the margins, it works better
for everyone
Three UDL Principles
Access
Assessment
Engagement
Principle I: Access - Provide
Multiple Means of Representation
 Provide students with options for how they can
access the content
 Materials published before 1923 are in the public
domain.


You may freely provide digital alternatives for these
materials.
See U. S. Copyright laws for more information.
Principle II: Assessment - Provide
Multiple Means of Action and Expression
 Provide options for students to demonstrate their
understanding in a variety of ways
Principle III: Engagement - Provide
Multiple Means of Engagement
 Provide students with choices in acknowledgements
or recognition
 Provide students with choices in tools used for
information gathering or production
 Design activities so outcomes are authentic,
purposeful and communicate to real audiences
UDL and RtI Working Together
Here’s how……
 Supports Effective Decision Making through BALANCED
ASSESSMENT (Data/Assessment)

Data Based Decision Making through an RtI Framework
 More Flexible Interventions and Instruction

May meet a greater array of needs through HIGH QUALITY
INSTRUCTION (Practices/Access)
 Simultaneously implementing improves general
education curriculum through COLLABORATION
 Supports Culturally Responsive Practices (Systems)
Next Steps.
What is your next move?
 Is the culture of your building ready for change?

Do we have a healthy culture?
If not, then what?
 If so, what’s next?

 Identify where effective practices are already occurring.




Is Universal Design for Learning being implemented in your
school/district?
Do you have a coaching model to expand these effective practices.
Start small and build. It will take time to be systemic and systematic.
Are expectations for SwD’s an extension of the system or is it
something ‘separate’?
 Is your system setup to address challenges/barriers?


Does coaching exist to support this?
Do you have non-negotiables?
Thank you!
QUESTIONS?
COMMENTS?