Here we are again: At the end of another school year.
Every school year, we like to use our June article to look back on the ground we covered diving into journal articles and sharing evidence-based practices. Today is that day.
Last year, we worked to define what PBIS implementation really is. This year, we wanted to build on that foundation and explore how leveraging the elements of PBIS can help us solve some of the challenges we face in schools right now. Sometimes a challenge feels so insurmountable, we lose sight of the systems and practices we already have in place that can help us blaze a path forward.
Over the course of this year, we explored all kinds of challenges through 9 articles and 9 podcast episodes. These resources will be here whenever you need them, but it’s the end of the school year. We need easy, simple things.
Here is your year-end wrap up of the articles and podcasts we produced in 2024-2025. Enjoy your summer and we’ll catch you back here in August.
September 2024
Unlock Your PBIS Potential With a Continuous Improvement Cycle
At the beginning of the year, every team faces a challenging proposition of reorienting themselves to the fundamentals of their PBIS implementation. It can be overwhelming, but it’s also a necessary part of sustaining the goals you met year over year. In September, we introduced you to the continuous improvement cycle — a problem-solving process designed to improve your systems and practices over time. If you find yourself wondering where to start your school year, let the continuous improvement cycle guide your path.
The Lesson Learned: The legwork you do as a team to use data, include your schoolwide community’s perspectives, and leverage your experience as educators is critical to create safer, more positive schools.
Listen to the accompanying podcast episode: How to Sustain PBIS in the Long Term with guests Drs. Brandi Simonsen, Heather George, and Kent McIntosh
October 2024
Turquoise or Blue? How One Test Uncovers the Hidden Assumptions in Our Classrooms
How consistent are your responses to student behavior? Do you respond the same way your colleagues do? We don’t have to agree on everything, but when it comes to how we react to student behavior, predictability is essential. In October, we explored why consistent expectations and responses help you achieve better outcomes and shared two simple activities to help your team get everyone on the same page.
The Lesson Learned: If we want our schools to be welcoming spaces, we need to actively name the perception differences we have and work together to define the values and norms representing our whole schoolwide community.
Listen to the accompanying podcast episode: Creating & Sustaining Positive School Climate with guests Kathy Stauffer, Sun Saeteurn, and Ginny Joseph.
November 2024
Are Schoolwide Tickets the Secret to Better Classrooms? Here’s the Truth
We all want to create spaces where students show up ready and eager to learn. Research tells us those spaces start from a foundation of trust and connection. How do you create that atmosphere? Leverage your acknowledgement system and start expressing appreciation for the way your students show up to class. Our November article shares four lessons learned from high school settings on how to incorporate positive feedback into your daily routines. From pocket reminders to peer-to-peer praise, these are the simple strategies to implement today!
The Lesson Learned: Students want to hear from you and their friends when they do something great. As long as it’s authentic, that praise can take several forms.
Listen to the accompanying podcast episode: Mythbusters – Rewards Don’t Work to Improve Outcomes with guests Erica Bauer, Joya Mitchell, and Jaymz Keller Jr.
December 2024
Our Favorite Things 2024
It’s an annual tradition! This year’s list didn’t disappoint. From word games to learning networks, these were some of the little things that brought big joy to our day in 2024.
The Lesson Learned: Make space for the fun stuff. You deserve to take things a little less seriously sometimes.
Listen to the accompanying podcast episode: Closing Out 2024 with Hilarious Stories from the Classroom with guests Nadia Sampson and Diertra Lomeli.
January 2025
Boredom-buster Engagement Strategies to Spark Student Interest
A refrain we hear more and more these days is students just don’t seem to care about school like they used to. Teachers are working hard at the front of the class to make the material engaging and interesting, and yet, 49% of students report daily boredom, with nearly 20% admitting they were bored in every class.1 There isn’t going to be one solution to this problem, but in January, we shared four evidence-based strategies to help you decrease boredom and increase student engagement in your classrooms.
The Lesson Learned: When boredom strikes, our brains look for something more engaging to do. In your classroom, the goal is to offer more engaging options than students could otherwise find on their phones.
Listen to the accompanying podcast episode: Mythbusters – Students Today Don’t Care About School Like They Used To with guests Marisa Cardenas-Joslyn and Aydree.
February 2025
Defining Equity in Education: What it Means and Why it Matters
In February, we kicked off a 3-part series to do the work of defining key words in PBIS implementation. We started with “equity”. Equity is an essential outcome of every PBIS implementation and it’s something we can continuously monitor with data. Behavior data from referrals and perception data from surveys like the School Climate Survey are two key components to evaluate the way your PBIS implementation affects the equitable outcomes you want to achieve.
The Lesson Learned: Equity lives at the center of your PBIS implementation. It isn’t an add-on feature. It’s embedded into every system, every practice, and every data point.
Listen to the accompanying podcast episode: Creating Equitable PBIS Solutions that Work for All Students with guest Mari Meador
March 2025
Every Student, Every Need: Equity’s Secret Sauce
We continued our 3-part series to define elusive terms by exploring the difference between equity and equality. It’s easy to understand how these two terms could get confused with one another. The difference boils down to what’s equal (equality) and what’s fair (equity). In PBIS, to achieve what’s fair, you need to know what support might be helpful for which students. Data can guide you through that process.
The Lesson Learned: The support that works for most sometimes isn’t enough for everyone. Sometimes we need to offer something different so we can achieve our full social and academic potential.
Listen to the accompanying podcast episode: Cultivating a Culture of Belonging in Your Classroom with guest Dr. Nikole Hollins-Sims.
April 2025
Making Space for Everyone: Inclusion, Data, and the Power of Schoolwide Support
The final installment in our series defining key words in PBIS came in April when we spent some time defining “inclusion”. Finding the definition was fairly straightforward — it’s part of our federal law. Determining how inclusive your PBIS implementation is, that was a little trickier. We took our cue from research and offered five strategies you can implement right now to make sure your schoolwide implementation includes every student in your building.
The Lesson Learned: Inclusive practices benefit everyone – both students with and without disabilities.
Listen to the accompanying podcast episode: All Means All – Inclusive Practices in Tier 1 PBIS with guest Dr. Sheldon Loman
May 2025
Your PBIS Action Plan for Mental Health Starts Here
May is Mental Health Month. This year’s Mental Health America theme was “Turn awareness into action.” The latest version of the Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI 3.0) prioritizes mental health supports, classroom implementation, and equity in its scoring criteria. It was the perfect place to turn as we looked to transform compassion into concrete steps. This month’s article took a closer look at four items from the TFI 3.0 and how we can improve the mental health supports we offer schoolwide.
The Lesson Learned: There will always be new ways to continuously improve your PBIS implementation to support students emotionally and academically.
Listen to the accompanying podcast episode: Mental Health Awareness is a Schoolwide Practice with guest Dr. Miriam White Pedeaux.