What is PBIS?

If a child doesn’t know how to read, we teach.
If a child doesn’t know how to swim, we teach.
If a child doesn’t know how to multiply, we teach.
If a child doesn’t know how to drive, we teach.
If a child doesn’t know how to behave, we… teach? …punish?
Why can’t we finish the last sentence as automatically as we do the others?

Tom Herner, NASDE President 1998

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is an evidence-based, three tiered framework to improve and integrate all of the data, systems and practices affecting student outcomes everyday. PBIS creates schools where all students succeed.

The goal of PBIS is to create a positive school climate where students learn and grow. After all, if a child is not happy, how can we adequately engage the child in class? School climate has a direct impact on attendance rates, academic achievement, and engagement. Positive school climate helps students develop the social and emotional skills they will need to become productive members of society. When children enter our schools in AUSD, we are striving to instill:

A feeling of safety
Respect
Engagement in learning
Involvement in school life-school pride
Shared vision
Involvement of teachers, students and families

AUSD has been implementing PBIS for over 7 years. We are happy to be in our second year of partnering with LACOE to continue our efforts of expanding PBIS in every school in every classroom so that every child benefits from a welcoming school culture. In 2022-2023, AUSD began aligning with Protect, Connect, Educate (PCE) to bring their Peer PLUS Program as a means to incorporate student voice and leadership in our PBIS organization. Every site has revised its own behavioral matrix, learning expectations, reward system and school wide assemblies to reflect a more equitable perspective while promoting school pride, common expectations and an overall sense of positivity in the school. PBIS teams and PLUS student Leaders will be revisiting these matrices and systems, revising as needed based on data collected, to continue a focus on teaching and reteaching expected behaviors rather than promoting a culture of punishment; an essential component of Tier I within the MTSS model. Schools will reiterate the important fact that every action has a consequence, and that consequences may have either good or negative outcomes. However, every mistake is taken as an opportunity to grow and learn. We promote the learning through restorative practices and circles.

To learn more about your school's PBIS Behavioral Matrix, Expectations and reward systems, visit your school's website or ask your school's PBIS Team!