About Positive Behavior Interventions & Support (PBIS)

What is PBIS?

Positive Behavior Interventions & Support, or PBIS, is a multitiered framework for enhancing the adoption and implementation of a continuum of evidence-based interventions to achieve academically and behaviorally important outcomes for all students (Sugai et al., 2000). Positive Behavior Supports, or PBS, may be implemented with individual students and/or they can be implemented at a school-wide level using a multi-tiered systems framework.

Positive environments help all students feel valued and supported, and teach, reference, and reinforce rules in every environment on the school campus. Essential in PBIS environments is the usage of evidence-based interventions, implementing interventions with fidelity, and progress monitoring student outcomes to make important decisions about the interventions selected.

Why Consider Positive Behavior Supports?

  • Students learn and are reinforced for the behaviors that are desired and expected, rather than only learning what they should not do.
  • Challenging behaviors are the number one reason why students with disabilities are excluded from academic and social opportunities.
  • Exclusionary discipline practices have been found to be highly ineffective and are associated with decreased school engagement and academic achievement and increased rates of future behavior incidents, school dropout, and arrests. Rather, positive behavior supports have been found to promote positive learning environments, create trusting and respectful student-teacher relationships, and result in more frequent and long-lasting demonstration of positive, desired behavior by students.
  • Use of PBS can improve outcomes and reduce the need for more restrictive placements, exclusionary discipline practices and potentially the use of emergency interventions such as restraint or seclusion.
  • In schools where PBIS is being implemented with fidelity, improvements were found in office discipline referrals, suspensions, school safety and climate, academic achievement, and bullying.
  • Positive behavior supports build educator skills and reduce teacher burnout resulting in increased teacher retention.

PENT is dedicated to the dissemination of information and resources on PBIS to California educators that are grounded in best practice and evidence based. This section includes functional and usable PENT trainings, documents, tools, and resources for educators who lead, design, and implement PBIS efforts in schools.