Building
Strong Schools to Strengthen Student Outcomes—A Summer Review of Previous Blogs (IV of IV)
Dear Colleagues,
Introduction
I hope you are
doing well, and that your summer has been both peaceful and productive.
Over the course of
the summer, I have devoted my “Summer Series” to helping you to read, re-read,
or re-conceptualize my most-popular Blogs by organizing them in a thematic way.
To be more
specific, I have reviewed and organized virtually all of these popular Blogs
(available to over 250,000 educators across the nation) into four clusters:
* School
Improvement, Strategic Planning, and Effective School and Schooling Policies
and Practices
* The New Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESEA/ESSA), and Multi-Tiered and Special Education
Services
* Students’ Mental
Health Status and Wellness, and School Discipline and Disproportionality
* School Climate
and Safety, and School Discipline and Classroom Management
_ _ _ _ _
The Summer Series
began on June 17 focusing on the Blogs that broadly addressed School
Improvement.
[CLICK
HERE to read the June 17 Blog on School Improvement].
The Series continued
on July 1 with a Blog on ESEA/ESSA and Multi-tiered and Special Education
Services.
[CLICK
HERE to read the July 1 Blog]
On July 15, the
Blog synthesized my previous Student Mental Health Status and Wellness, and
School Discipline/Disproportionality Blogs.
[CLICK
HERE to read the July 15 Blog]
_ _ _ _ _
Today, in the final
installment of this Series, I discuss my past Blogs addressing “School Climate
and Safety, and School Discipline and Classroom Management.”
Below, I provide
you with the Dates and Titles of past Blog messages in this cluster—so
you can look up and read at your “summer leisure” those that particularly
interest you.
_ _ _ _ _
But. . . in
addition, today’s Blog also concludes the discussion—begun in the June 17 and
continued in July 1 and 15 blogs—of the essential elements of Project
ACHIEVE (www.projectachieve.net). The first installment discussed an overview
of Project ACHIEVE, while the second installment addressed Project ACHIEVE’s
goals and model. The third installment
described the first four of the seven interdependent evidence-based
components that guide Project ACHIEVE’s school improvement process.
Today, I will
describe the last three components.
Briefly, Project
ACHIEVE is the evidence-based national model school improvement program (as
designated in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration—SAMHSA) that I have developed
over the past 30 years, and that is the foundation behind my thinking, writing,
and practice.
Project ACHIEVE
components have been implemented in “Great to Greater” through “Needs
Improvement” preschools through high schools nationwide—as well as in
alternative, residential treatment, juvenile justice, special education, and
other specialized school centers.
In total, Project
ACHIEVE’s seven interdependent components are:
* Strategic
Planning and Organizational Analysis and Development
* Multi-tiered Problem
Solving, Response-to-Intervention, Teaming, and Consultation Processes
* Effective School,
Schooling, and Professional Development
* Multi-tiered Academic
Instruction linked to Academic Assessment, Intervention, and Achievement
* Multi-tiered Positive
Behavioral Support/Behavioral Instruction linked to Behavioral Assessment,
Intervention, and Self-Management
* Parent and
Community Involvement, Training, Support, and Outreach
* Data Management,
Evaluation, and Accountability
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The Last Three
Project ACHIEVE School Improvement Components
Project ACHIEVE is
an innovative school reform and school improvement program that has been
implemented in schools and school districts in every state in the country since
1990. To date, one or more of its
components have been presented to thousands of schools nationwide—in schools
ranging from urban to suburban to rural, and from the lowest performing to the
highest performing schools in the nation.
At its core,
Project ACHIEVE provides implementation blueprints that are based on
research-proven and empirically-demonstrated effective practices woven together
into an implementation process that works.
Initially, we work
with schools to complete a comprehensive needs assessment and resource analysis
to determine their current needs, the approaches they are using that are
working, the gaps that are preventing them from improving further, and the
strategic goals and outcomes that are indicated or desired.
_ _ _ _ _
Below are brief
descriptions of the last three Project ACHIEVE components:
The Multi-tiered Positive Behavioral Support/Behavioral
Instruction linked to Behavioral Assessment, Intervention, and Self-Management Component
This component focuses
on the implementation of effective school discipline, classroom management, and
student self-management services, supports, strategies, and interventions. The latter area targets preschool through
high school students’ social, emotional, and behavioral self-management skills—especially
their positive and prosocial interpersonal, social awareness and
problem-solving, conflict prevention and intervention, and emotional control
and coping skills.
All of this is done
along a prevention, strategic intervention, and intensive need/crisis
management multi-tiered continuum. In
total, this component helps schools to develop a comprehensive, school-wide
“Positive Behavioral Support System” (PBSS) which includes the use of social
skills training with all students by school staff and parents; the development
of classroom, grade-level, and building-wide accountability systems; and the
use of “special situation” analyses to address building and peer-driven
situations; and the development of crisis prevention, intervention, and
response procedures and teams.
Critically, when
students do not respond—socially, emotionally, or behaviorally—to prevention and
social skill-oriented PBSS strategies, “21st Century” functional assessments are conducted
and linked to strategic behavioral interventions that are designed to resolve
the identified behavioral challenges.
_ _ _ _ _
The Parent and Community Involvement, Training, Support,
and Outreach Component
This component focuses
on increasing the involvement of all parents, but especially the involvement of
the parents of at-risk, underachieving, and students with disabilities. Relative to community involvement, many
schools do not use, much less know, the expertise and resources available to
them that can help their mission and the progress of their students. For students with significant academic or
behavioral challenges, the coordination and integration of community-based
professionals and services often results in stronger and more pervasive
progress and outcomes.
_ _ _ _ _
The Data Management, Evaluation, and Accountability
Component
This component focuses
on actively evaluating, formatively and summatively, the status and progress of
students’ academic and behavioral mastery of skills and concepts, as well as
the processes and activities embedded in all of the other Project ACHIEVE
components—that is, the essential components of an effective school.
Part of this
process involves collecting formative and summative data that validate the
impact of a school’s strategic planning and school improvement efforts; its
professional development and capacity-building efforts relative to the staff;
its selection, training and implementation of academic and behavioral curricula
and, later, interventions; and its effectiveness relative to the functional
assessment, strategic intervention, and response-to-instruction-and-intervention
services for students not making appropriate academic and behavioral
progress.
Another part of
this process involves evaluating the consultative success of related service
and support personnel with classroom teachers, as well as the interpersonal
interactions that address the other process-oriented parts of the Seven C’s
(Communication, Caring, Commitment, Collaboration, Consultation, Consistency,
and Celebration) that influence system, staff, and student success.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
School Climate and
Safety, and School Discipline and Classroom Management
With the new Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA/ESSA), the importance of looking at and nurturing the non-academic
factors that impact students’ academic proficiency is more important than ever
before. This especially includes
ensuring that all schools are safe with consistently positive classroom
climates, and that school discipline and classroom management are an inherent
part of the “academic program.”
Beyond ESEA/ESSA,
however, school safety and discipline are constantly discussed in national
reports and research, in the popular press, and on social media. As such, over
the past three years, I have written a number of Blogs addressing, for
example: student engagement, the role
and impact of school resource officers, student violence and injuries, and my
ongoing concern that many school discipline “programs” have not been
independently and comprehensively validated, and that they too often “promise
the moon, but do not deliver the cheese.”
Below is a list of
the Dates and Titles of the Blogs addressing topics in these areas. To find the Complete Blog Cited Below:
Please go to the right-hand side of
this Blog page. There you will find a Blog
Archive. Using that Archive, pull
down the month and year of the Blog you are interested in, and click on
the Blog’s title to link to the original message.
Here are the Past
Blogs:
School Climate and Safety
May 15, 2016: Student Engagement (Down),
Teacher Satisfaction (Down), School Safety and Academic Expectations (Down)--
How Do We Raise Up our Students and Schools to Success?
April 17, 2016: School Resource Officers:
Helping or Hurting Students and School Discipline? The Need to Integrate
Criteria for Hiring, Training, and Involving School Resource Officers,
School-based Police, and Security Guards in Our Schools, and into the
ESEA/ESSA’s Required Bullying, Restraint, and Suspension Plans
August 3, 2014: Implementing the U.S.
Department of Education's School Safety Report: Resources to Prepare your
School at the Policy, Procedure, and Practice Levels
June 22, 2014: The 2013 U.S. School Crime
Report Just Released by the US Departments of Education and Justice:
Making Schools Safer during the Summer, so They are Safe in the Fall
June 8, 2014: New National Report
Discusses Ways to Improve School Learning Conditions for Students and Staff. .
. and How to Break the "School to Prison" Link for Behaviorally
Challenging Students
January 26, 2014: New Brown University
Study: 90,000 Students per Year Suffer "Intentional" Injuries at
School between 2001 and 2008….Resources to Help Schools and Districts Prevent
Student Violence, Assaults, and Aggression
January 12, 2014: U.S. Department of
Education Report: "Guiding Principles: A Resource Guide for
Improving School Climate and Discipline"
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
School Discipline and Classroom Management
June 4, 2017: Effective School-wide
Discipline Approaches: Avoiding Educational Bandwagons that Promise the Moon,
Frustrate Staff, and Potentially Harm Students... Implementation Science
and Systematic Practice versus Pseudoscience, Menu-Driven Frameworks, and
“Convenience Store” Implementation
January 7, 2017: Education Week
Series on RtI Highlights Kentucky/ Appalachian Mountain Grant Site’s Successful
School Discipline Program: An Overview of the Scientific Components
Behind this Success, and a Free Implementation Guide for Those Who Want to
Follow
November 27, 2016: When Character
Education Programs Do Not Work: Creating “Awareness” Does NOT CHANGE
“Behavior” . . . TEACHING Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills
Requires Behavioral Instruction
August 7, 2016: Effective School
Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management: The Five
Components that Every School Needs. . . Reflections on a National Survey of
Administrators and Teachers
July 9, 2016: Teaching Students
Self-Management Skills: If We Want Them to Behave, We Need to Teach Them
to Behave
May 30, 2016: The Difference between
Social Stories and Social Skills Training? A BIG Difference!
November 1, 2015: Research to
Practice: How do Teachers Influence Students' Classroom
Self-Management? New Report says that Positive Classroom Climates and
Relationships Most Influence Student Motivation
September 19, 2015: Why Students Don't
Behave? Because We are not Teaching Them the Social, Emotional, and
Behavioral Skills that They Need
August 22, 2015: New National Education
Association (NEA) Policy Brief Highlights Project ACHIEVE's Positive Behavioral
Support System (PBSS) as an Evidence-based Model for School Discipline,
Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management
July 8, 2015: The Unfulfilled Promise of
Education: Students' Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills
March 1, 2014: Implementing the U.S.
Department of Education's New School Discipline Policies: A Three-Year Positive
Behavioral Support Implementation Blueprint
December 15, 2013: The National Council
on Teacher Quality and The New York Times: Teacher Training Programs NOT
Preparing New Teachers in Classroom Management, and Zero Tolerance Procedures
for School Discipline Do not Work
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
I hope you found
this and the three preceding Blogs helpful and meaningful to your work.
I always look
forward to your comments. . . whether on-line or via e-mail.
And—with the
new school year almost upon us: If I
can help you in any of the areas discussed in this and the other Blog messages,
I am always happy to provide a free one-hour consultation conference call
to help you clarify your needs and directions on behalf of your students,
staff/colleagues, school(s), and district.
Please accept my
best wishes for the remainder of your summer !!! Believe it or not, some of you will be
heading back to the classroom before my next Blog message.
Best,
Howie
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