2. Culturally Responsive Practices Companion Field Guide (An Introduction)
Milaney Leverson
Kent Smith
@leversmil
@Kent1915
To be most effective, Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports should fit the school's context.  In addition to reflecting the school's culture, systems should also be a reflection of the students, families, and the communities served by the school.  Creating a universal PBIS framework that has, at its heart, culturally responsive practices can be intimidating.  This session will present the PBIS Cultural Responsiveness Field Guide: a Resource for Trainers and Coaches, developed by the presenters as members of the National PBIS Center’s Equity Work Group.  In this session participants will learn the background of the resource, understand the key components of the guide, and will learn how the guide is organized and where to access it.

3. Agenda
Things to know
Parts of the Guide
How to use
Getting started

4. Things to Know Identity work is critical
The Guide helps build CR Systems, is not a CR guide
When looking at data:
Preface the conversation by outlining patterns in National, state, district, & building data to illustrate common trends
Risk ratio is not diagnostic; further investigation into disparate outcomes is necessary

5. May be easier to start with gender or poverty; teams must eventually address race and ethnicity
Poverty: Skiba, et al. study (2011) entitled Race Is Not Neutral: A National Investigation of African American and Latino Disproportionality in School Discipline found race to be a stronger predictor of success than poverty
Systems and practices are of equal importance and both areas must be addressed to effect change.

6. Parts of the Guide
Introduction - Background, logic, and “how-to” use the guide Identity Development - Discussion on identity development, how identity impacts school and classroom cultures. TFI Culturally Responsive Components - embeds culturally responsive components into the TFI including how what the core universal component is, what the CR elaboration includes, examples, non-examples and resources. Appendices - definitions of key terms, materials, examples, activities and resources.

7. Identity Development
Identity development work must be systemic. To ensure sustainability, staff must have support regarding when and how to do this work.

8. Section I: Identity Development Practitioners
Practitioners must examine and understand:
How and why they perceive the world the way they do
Their own comfort level with issues of race, ethnicity, and educational and social disparities
The background from which they develop and apply their expectations, procedures, routines, and practices
The purpose of their expectations, procedures, and practices
It is imperative that staff examine their beliefs about what is “normal,” “appropriate,” or “acceptable” behavior.
These notions are culturally defined and can vary greatly from person to person, thus providing the basis for disproportionate correction.

9. Identity Development Student & Family and School & Community
Student and Family Identity:
Student and family backgrounds, cultures, and values
Students understanding their own identity
School and Community Identity:
People of the community; their beliefs, values, and expectations
Shared experiences that shape the behaviors of community members
The school’s place in the community: Source of pride? Source of conflict?
Connections between the school and community agencies/organizations
Visibility of the school at community events
School and/or district teams should use student and system data along with community feedback to guide decision-making.

10. Section II: SWPBIS Cultural Responsiveness Companion
Teams are encouraged to:
Complete the Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI), found at
Identify areas of priority from the TFI
Refer to related sections of the SWPBIS Cultural Responsiveness Companion
Develop an action plan
Use Culturally Responsive SWPBIS Self Assessment for progress monitoring

11. Technical & Adaptive Change
Technical Change
Supports actual practices or instruction, involve learning and implementing new strategies or tools.
Adaptive Change
Requires changes in values, beliefs, roles, relationships, & approaches to work.
How can PBIS help our school reach more students?
How can we be more responsive to the
students we serve?
Essential components
Steps in the process
Intervention tools
These two types of change may occur in sequence or simultaneously. In general, research on change in educator attitudes and behaviors indicates that adaptive change may be more likely to occur after technical change, as a result of experiencing successes and seeing the potential for equitable outcomes through using effective strategies (Guskey, 1986).
Changes you SEE
Changes you FEEL
Helfetz and Lusky, 2002

12. SWPBIS Cultural Responsiveness Companion: Organized by TFI Features
Team Composition
Team Operating Procedures
Behavioral Expectations
Teaching Expectations
Problem Behavior Definitions
Discipline Policies
Professional Development
Classroom Procedures
Feedback and Acknowledgement
Faculty Involvement
Student/Family/Community Involvement
Discipline Data
Data-based Decision Making
Fidelity Data
Annual Evaluation

13. Team Composition

14. Behavioral Expectations

15. Validate – Affirm – Build – Bridge
To make legitimate that which the institution (academia) and mainstream has made illegitimate.
Build –
Making the connections between the home culture and language with the school culture and language through instructional strategy and activity.
Affirm –
To make positive that which the institution (academia) and mainstream media has made negative.
Bridge –
Giving opportunities for situational appropriateness or the utilization of the appropriate cultural or linguistic behavior.
All of the previous strategies should be aimed at VABBing with stakeholders. We want to:
Validate and Affirm concerns
And Build and Bridge to the purpose of implementation

16. Problem Behavior Definitions

17. Behavior Definitions
Research indicates that subjective behaviors more often result in disproportionate discipline for students of color (e.g., defiance, disrespect)
McIntosh, Girvan, Horner, & Smolkowski, 2014 Skiba et al., 2011

18. Feedback and Acknowledgement

19. Student/Family/Community Involvement

20. Engagement Defined Engaged Stakeholders demonstrate ownership through:
Investment in Purpose
Commitment to Common Goal/Vision
Active and Continued Participation
Interactive Communication
Internal/External and two way

21. Discipline Data

22. Appendix Examples of concepts referenced in the Guide
Activities that can be done with staff
Lesson plans for how to teach the concepts to staff

29. How to Use This Guide
Teams may use this tool either before initial SWPBIS implementation to build cultural responsiveness into systems from the beginning or after initial SWPBIS implementation to enhance equity of existing systems. To use this resource, we suggest the following steps:

30. Step 1
Complete the TFI. Teams can first complete the SWPBIS Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI; available at a fidelity of implementation measure for SWPBIS. This measure allows teams to rate their implementation of the critical features of SWPBIS and identify next steps for implementation.

31. Step 2
Use the TFI Cultural Responsiveness Companion. After completing the TFI, teams can use the companion to assess and improve the cultural responsiveness of their SWPBIS systems. Teams may choose to
review the whole companion,
consult items from the TFI that are in place (to build on strengths), or
assess items where the TFI indicates need for improvement or other information indicates the need for enhanced cultural responsiveness.

32. Step 3
Create an action plan. Use the information from the TFI and this resource to develop a detailed action plan for implementing core components of cultural responsiveness within SWPBIS.

33. Getting Started
Establish the need in local terms – mismatch between mission and outcome
Begin Identity Development work
Move into the CR TFI use

34. PBIS Disproportionality Data Guide
Equity in PBIS website from OSEP PBIS Technical Assistance Center Data Guidebook WI Risk Ratio Tool