- Targeted Behaviors
- Behavior Clusters
- Reason for Behaviors
- In-Class Interventions
- In-School Support Services
Generic Facilitator Do's/Don'ts and Misc. Advice
** Re: concern about schools that already have pieces in place--ask what the identified outcomes were and if what they have done has achieved or is achieving those outcomes, then check for that evidence.
** There is no right way as you take the schools where they are and work from that point. In order to do that, the District Team Facilitator needs to know the components and the purpose of those components. Success is achieving the outcomes and that is what you do every time and everything that you do: they must see that everything ties into the outcomes.
** Having rules posted in the schools is a step or activity, NOT an outcome. Then, how do you get to the outcomes??? - from the principal, from the teacher, through the interviews, through the observations = barriers to the outcomes.
** To ensure that there is no conflict in the school, need to review the expectancies--write them down and get them firm--either as a group or as individuals. If there is no agreement in the expectancies, you have to stop it right there and get resolution.
** The plan ties into all aspects of the education program (e.g., the curriculum).
** Any plan must be consistent with state and district policy
-Also must have the parameters as identified by the principal
-Also must address levels of intensity (community, neighborhood, family, parent-child)** If there is a district expectancy, then that is different and they must buy in to the district outcomes.
** If something is not working, then they shouldn't be doing it. "We can't write school rules because no one can agree--if there can be no agreement on what everyone should do, then there is no reason for school rules."
** As the facilitator, CLARIFY the problem.
** At each point, be sure to thoroughly define all terms clearly and so that all terms communicate and are written in the language of the school’s philosophy and mission.
** Remember that discipline activities decrease when there are clear expectancies.
** Any time there is disagreement at any piece of the plan, you don’t do it!
** Be sure that you can define purpose of each component.
** Prior to each school visit, develop "lesson plan" for the work you will do during that visit.
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Key Points
(A) Always restate outcomes
(B) "Let them build it and they will do it; if you build it, you will have to do it!!" (Clark, 1996)
(C) Always be aware of the impact of your beliefs on your TA.
(D) BEWARE: Conflicting/poorly defined expectancies and outcomes doom you to be a dismal gut wrenching sewer DOE sounding failure.
(E) REMEMBER REX’s RULE:
#1. The school is always right.
#2. When in doubt, refer to #1. (Ingrick, 1996)
ALWAYS REMEMBER, THE QUESTIONS ARE:
1. What do you want to achieve?
2. What is your evidence?
3. Who is this for--target population?
Assumptions Implicit to the Concept:
1) Student performance--data and perception
2) Performance based
3) Outcome driven
4) Client (teacher) driven
5) Action oriented, not process oriented (e.g., if any part of the "book" is not going to be implemented, it doesn't go in)
6) Proactive and not the last line of resort
7) Communication is the key
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Notes for Components and Process to be Used During Initial Meetings
1) Purpose, Expectancies, & Desired Outcomes
- Establish performance objectives and indicators with principal and/or school-based team.
** Ties to the SIP plan.2) Philosophy & Mission
- Develop school’s philosophy as a consistent statement of school’s beliefs system:
-Communicates the school’s beliefs
-Foundation for every other piece of the plan
-This is what will be practiced
-Done first to set "degrees of freedom," but often won’t be bought into first
-Often when interventions are developed, many discover that their philosophy was not well articulated
-At each step, check for point of conflict
-Gives you a common place to begin- Develop a mission statement that communicates the philosophy and allows the practice of the philosophy/enables the philosophy.
** Each facilitator will ensure the connection with the Campaign for Excellence is identified.3) Survey of School-based Staff
- This can be done at any time in the process.
4) On-site Observation & Review
- This can be done at any time in the process, especially if the facilitator needs to confirm information provided by the school-based team.
5) Expectancies
- What do we expect of everyone in our school so that we are:
-Practicing our beliefs
-Achieving out set outcomes
-This is what will be practiced
-Communicating expectancies for all members of the school "community" in all school locations.6) Beliefs in Discipline
- Identify each staff member’s beliefs.
- Communicate that as long as legal and ethical, all beliefs are correct and will be represented in the plan; no one will be asked to change beliefs if they don’t want to unless their beliefs directly impede the plan agreed to by the school staff.
** Schedule time to identify how each belief style will approach development of the plan.7) Targeted Behaviors
- Essential to clearly communicate and define behaviors of concern, clusters of behaviors that require similar types and intensities of interventions, and the intensity and duration of behaviors that would prompt different interventions.
8) Expected Behaviors
- Reflect philosophy.
- Use the already identified expectancies as basis for the development of the expected behaviors - rules communicate the expectancies.
- Provide structure to implement philosophy and achieve outcomes.
- After these expected behaviors are established, then write classroom rules.
- Classroom rules are more specific and follow from the school rules.
9) In-class interventions
- Teachers should have a basic set of knowledge, skills, and abilities.
- There are certain behaviors that teachers should not be expected to deal with - identify what and at what level.
10) In-school support
- When a teacher has followed the rules, practiced the philosophy..., send student out of the classroom.
- When teacher is referring to behaviors that staff has agreed should be handled by teachers, then it becomes an administrative issue (e.g., does that teacher need professional development in particular in-class strategies? Is that teacher refusing to implement the school-adopted process?)
** Specifically address why the teacher is sending the student out.11) Out-of-school support
- This is usually in the form of suspension, expulsion, alternative placement, etc. Those responsible for these services should form the work group to define these interventions.
12) Communication
- "Request for Assistance" = method for documentation of clear and consistent communication.
-Targeted to teacher's request
-Includes only necessary information
-Provides feedback opportunities for clear communication
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Notes to Facilitators Regarding:
Targeted Behaviors
Behavior Clusters
Intensity and Duration of Behaviors
- Communicate with examples
- Cluster together because the intervention is the same
- Build a list of interventions, then categorize those behaviors the reasons for which would require different interventions.
- The "cluster" determines the intervention
- Behavior occurs for a reason
- Builds a common language to facilitate clear communication about behaviors
- Develops a common understanding for the reasons at the level that the interventions occurs
- Ex: frustration vs. defiant, would the intervention be different? List out the categories of reason that require different interventions.
It is understandable that if every T/ has determined that it is reasonable to do _____ in response to a student behavior, then that teacher is obligated to request assistance.
- See "Guide for Implementation" to help teachers use tools. Ex: If student does _____ for a specific reason, use _____.
** Assumption: Teachers cannot and should not have to deal with all behaviors.
** Students exhibit behavior for a reason--look to that reason as a guide for intervention.
** Intensity and duration of the behavior will influence interventions and consequences.
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Notes to Facilitator Regarding In-Class Interventions
- The premise for determining appropriate and effective in-class interventions is that you must target the specific behavior; you just can't do interventions for "bad kids."
- When faculty are told that the reason for defining behaviors is to develop a consistent method for communication--so that when referring for "fighting" we all know what that means--all of the school teams that participated in this type of training have agreed SOS that this step was necessary. However, at that time, most schools didn’t get very far on this section.
- The school’s team, not the facilitator, must define the behaviors and provide examples of behavior - the school team defines it because they know what it means to them.
They may say an example falls under several clusters. The cluster that they put it under tells the facilitator that when they refer, the reason they are referring is different.
EX: Cussing may be considered as inappropriate and as violent/aggressive behavior. The consequence and support for a case considered inappropriate may be different that the case considered violent/aggressive.Ask them to define behavior:
EX: Untrustworthy behaviors are behaviors that lead me to not trust them. The school staff needs to define at their level--if it is too general, it will come out later and if they are "wrong," they will discover that they are wrong at the right time.- The District Team Facilitator prompts for clarification, not to push them to what the facilitator thinks the staff should do.
- Consequences must be developed at the level of intensity and duration that the behavior occurs.
"For all of these behaviors, at what level of intensity and for how long, using all the knowledge, skills and abilities that teachers all should have, should the teachers be required to deal with the behavior?"EX: In Cambridge plan, if a mild (intensity) disruption that disrupts the class for 1-3 minutes (duration) and is a student-teacher interaction, the teacher should be expected to deal with it in class. Therefore, when a teacher refers a student for behavior, you know that it has been occurring for more than 1-3 minutes and that it was beyond just the student and the teacher.- In the BSSEE process, this is a mandatory step and will take all year for a school to do because until this occurs, it will be very difficult to determine the needed in-school support systems and to meet the technical assistance needs of the teachers.
-Define behaviors
-Identify reasons that require different interventions
-As best as we can, we will identify intensity & duration- For each behavior, school staff must be able to clearly communicate.
"For these behaviors that have been defined for these reasons and at this level of intensity/duration, what should every classroom teacher be able to do?"
Attachment 1 in the workbook provides teachers with a description of in-class interventions expected to be used prior to requests for out of class assistance. Included in this description is:
-A definition of the intervention
-Illustrations of how to use the intervention proactively and reactively
-Examples of how the intervention would be used based on teaching philosophy
1) Identify interventions that the entire staff has agreed are expected of all classroom teachers.
"Every teacher should have the knowledge, skills, and ability to: ___"2) Then, define each.
"What does (ex: clarification) mean?"3) Then give example for each type of belief - interventionist (reactive), interactionalist, noninterventionist (facilitative) both intervening and proactively.
"What would an interventionist do proactively? Reactively?"
*** Some people have problems facilitating here, because you have to know how to teach (have to know about curriculum, inductive teaching, etc.); this is where the staff identifies and defines them. Staff often don't want to do this step because it is so much work!!!
Attachment 2 in the workbook provides teachers with a guide for implementing effective classroom interventions based on cause. Teachers are expected to implement these or similar interventions prior to requesting out of class assistance. This guide is organized as follows:
-Behavior cluster
-Examples of specific behaviors for each cluster
-Intensity/duration of behavior
-Most common reasons for behavior
-Interventions for each cluster based on intensity, duration, and reason**.
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Notes to Facilitators Regarding In-School Support Services
Provide teachers with a description of the support services provided when out of class assistance is required. Include in this description:
- The name of the service
- The purpose of the service
- Entrance criteria
- A description of the service provided
- Duration of the intervention
- Procedures for accessing the service
- Exit criteria
In sample workbook
"In-school Support" should be the last piece of the plan to be developed.
A student will be referred when he exhibits one of those behaviors beyond the intensity and duration for specific reasons; he will then be referred to support team that must design the appropriate support that addresses the reason for the behavior.
In workbook
Take the behaviors and the reasons and develop a specific support service to address and who is going to do it?
Define the PURPOSE of the intervention FIRST (no longer what are the current resources) then design the what and the who. Develop what the intervention should be. There must be someone in the school to develop intervention for this type/reason of behavior, then create the in-school support program.
REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE form is then a very clear communication document
- There are usually three types of support needed: crisis, short term, and long term.
- Ask the teachers
"What has to occur for you to 'feel, buy, and own' that this student is ready to come back to your classroom?" Have them identify and clearly define the interventions and/or consequences that they identify.- Previous step should result in mandatory and options (addressing extenuating circumstances)
EX: mandatory = counsel, contract, consequence
The consequence is decided by the "judge" who administers the consequence and the timeline and who must tell the teacher what has been decided.- The what is being done is to respond to the request for assistance that is driven by the reason for the behavior - goes back to the targeted behavior.
- The options for in-school support should be drafted by those individuals that are identified by the principal as the school’s support staff. This team becomes the work group for this section of the plan development always remembering that the clients are the teacher and the student.
Facilitate this team through the following steps:
-Identify the school's current support services
-Given these behaviors and reasons, identify available interventions
-Purpose of each intervention should be developed in direct response to teachers’ expectancies and targeted behaviors
EX: For _________ behaviors at _______ intensity for ________ duration = [support services] .-Then, identify the knowledge, skills, abilities necessary to do_[support service]_ -Given that, who should do it? -How frequently do you expect that you will need to access this person(s) and their service? -Given that, how do we configure our support services? -Then take back to the staff"When a S/ is referred for crisis, this is what could be done..." = "Guide for Implementation of In-School Interventions"; this draft goes to the faculty for approval/revisions.
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[ Appendix 1 ] [ Table of Contents ]
Copyright ©, 2000. Lee R. Clark. All Rights Reserved.
Not for dissemination without permission of Project Director.
Last modified 2001-03-21.