Gaining Staff Support for Schoolwide Positive Behavior Supports: A Guide for Teams

S choolwide positive behavioral intervention and supports (SWPBS) is a multitiered framework of supports designed to address a wide variety of social, emotional, and behavioral needs. Universal supports promote an encouraging school climate whereby all students are actively taught behavioral expectations and reinforced for appropriate behavior; supplemental supports are provided at the targeted level for those who are unresponsive to universal supports; and intensive supports are implemented for individual students with chronic levels of challenging behavior. At all levels of support, local data are utilized to determine student needs and response to interventions (Sugai & Horner, 2006; Sugai, Horner, & McIntosh, 2008). Many positive outcomes are associated with SWPBS, including reduced rates of office disciplinary referrals, detentions, and suspensions (e.g., Bohanon et al., 2006; Bradshaw, Reinke, Brown, Bevans, & Leaf, 2008; Scott & Barrett, 2004) and increased instructional time (e.g., Lassen, Steele, & Sailor, 2006; Luiselli, Putnam, Handler, & Feinberg, 2005). Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that SWPBS may be particularly beneficial to students at risk for and with emotional and behavioral disorders. Without the infrastructure of multitiered assessment and intervention that SWPBS yield, the prognosis for students with emotional and behavioral challenges becomes increasingly bleak (Gunter & Jack, 1994; Lewis, Jones, Horner, & Sugai, 2010; Severson, Walker, HopeDoolittle, Kratochwill, & Gresham, 2007). Despite the positive student outcomes associated with SWPBS, many schools struggle with implementation. One reason for this struggle may reside in the complex nature of systemic change and the propensity of educators, administrators, and policy makers alike to underestimate this complexity (Fixen, Naoom, Blasé, Friedman, & Wallace, 2005; Muscott et al., 2004). When the complexity of schoolwide reform is not appreciated, creating systemic readiness may be a neglected step. Without readiness, challenges in initial implementation may result in failure to achieve meaningful and sustainable change. Too often, we prioritize the procedural tasks associated with an innovation and underestimate the need to actively foster the readiness and support from the very school staff crucial to implementation (Adelman & Taylor, 2007; Hall & Hord, 2011). Only within the last decade has the field of SWPBS begun to address the importance of staff perceptions in implementation, and, as found with other innovation adoptions, staff support or ‘‘buy-in’’ appears to be key. For example, SWPBS coordinators and coaches have rated staff buy-in as one of the top facilitating factors to implementation and lack of buy-in as a critical barrier (Kincaid, Childs, Blase, & Wallace, 2007). Similarly, in interviews of SWPBS coordinators, Lohrmann, Forman, Martin, and Palmieri (2008) also found that main barriers to successful implementation were directly related to staff perceptions. Notably, this study highlighted the philosophical differences held by teachers in opposition with SWPBS principles. For example, many staff emphasized punitive responses rather than proactive or instructional ones, and even more so with students with emotional and behavioral challenges. Many also were opposed to providing rewards for behaviors, believing that students should be intrinsically motivated to do the right thing (Lohrmann et al.). Furthermore, team members supporting student needs at the individual level reported that variables related to teacher perceptions and practices were among the most pervasive barriers to implementation (Bambara, Nonnemacher, & Kern, 2009). Most (84%) reported that conflicting beliefs of staff interfered with the implementation of behavioral supports. For example, attempts to understand environmental influences of problem behaviors were often viewed as ‘‘making excuses for the child. ’’ Difficulty with staff perceptions and support for SWPBS may be particularly challenging in secondary schools. Recently, high school behavior leadership teams rated staff commitment or buy-in to SWPBS as one of their most salient challenges and top priorities. In fact, only 30% of team members reported that they obtained a majority of staff support for implementation. Similar to the previous studies, teams reported challenges with differing opinions over the philosophy such as ‘‘old values and attitudes’’ about school discipline, perceptions of lack of sustainability, staff stress from multiple mandates or initiative STAFF SUPPORT FOR SWPBS