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BEACONS
by Doug Cheney and Bridget Walker
Since 1998, BEACONS has been working with schools throughout Washington to implement Positive Behavior Supports at the school wide, targeted, and intensive levels for students. To date, over 30 elementary schools in 6 regions of the state have joined the BEACONS network to meet the social needs of all children, including those with or at-risk of developing emotional/behavioral disabilities.
BEACONS is located at the University of Washington, Seattle and funded by grants from Washington State's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the U.S. Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services and the Washington Education Association. In the 2004-05 school year, we will be working with schools in Eastmont, Cascade, Cashmere, Evergreen, Highline, North Kitsap, Renton, West Valley (Spokane Valley), Mukilteo, and Mercer Island School Districts.
We strive to:
a) Enhance schools' structures and strategies at three levels of PBS: school wide, targeted and intensive;b) Emphasize early intervention, prevention, agency and family collaboration, and cultural sensitivity;
c) Work with leadership teams to implement evidence based practices and have their school serve as an exemplar implementing PBS in their region of our state; and
d) Implement recommendations of Washington State's Task Force on Behavioral
In October of 1997, Dr. Terry Bergeson, Superintendent of Public Instruction and Mr. Lyle Quasim, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appointed a 30-member Task Force on Behavioral Disabilities to "make recommendations and identify resources in the areas of (a) policy and regulation, (b) program and placement, (c) funding, (d) cross-system access and collaboration (e) parent involvement, and (f) school safety." The Task Force reviewed extensive literature on best practices, met with constituent groups, and convened meetings with national experts to reach the following conclusions in their final report:
1. To meet the serious need identified, a mandated infrastructure must be established to coordinate existing services in a transdisciplinary "Comprehensive System of Care" –– cutting across boundaries of funding, professions, disciplines and roles, and relying on extensive collaboration from families, education, social, human and health services.
2. Efforts of this infrastructure must address issues of prevention and intervention strategies for all children at risk of developing a serious behavior disorder, and the training required for practicing professionals and families to provide prevention and intervention services.The Task Force recommended that a Comprehensive System of Care be developed and implemented throughout the state that addressed three levels –– universal, targeted at-risk and intensive –– based on a child's emotional and behavioral needs. The levels were suggested as critical in an article by Walker et al. (1996) and include:
- Universal Services – are provided to all children to help them develop positive pro social behaviors (e.g. skill-building for group play or conflict resolution).
- Targeted At-Risk Services – are directed to children with an elevated risk of developing behavioral problems (e.g. mentoring or group interventions at schools for student's behavior.
- Intensive Services – are provided to children with serious behavior problems and could include behavior intervention plans overseen by teams of professionals, day treatment, or residential treatment for the most serious cases.
In 1998, Doug Cheney, one of the co-chairs of the Task Force and a professor in the area of special education at the University of Washington, submitted a proposal to the US Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services to establish demonstration sites in Washington that were implementing this system of care by providing school-based positive behavioral supports (PBS). These positive supports are usually thought of as occurring at all three levels of the model above, and have outcomes that increase the positive social behavior of children and youth, while decreasing their problem behaviors. The proposal was funded from 1998-2002, and implemented at four schools: Ness Elementary in Spokane Valley, Burnt Bridge Creek Elementary in Vancouver, Seahurst Elementary in Burien, and Syre Elementary in Shoreline.
The results of the BEACONS Project, as well as the findings of the National Technical Assistance Center for Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports at the University of Oregon, indicate that the BEACONS model positively impacts school capacity and climate in a number of ways. Self-assessment and action planning completed by a school's leadership team provides an opportunity for school staff to target areas of concern for systematic improvement.
This process brings the school faculty together in order to set clear expectations for students, define procedures and processes for teaching positive expectations, a system for reinforcing students demonstrating the positive expectations, and a system for school staff to constantly monitor their progress through data-based decision making. Results demonstrate that school climate improves, office discipline referrals decrease, and both teachers and administrators regain instructional time that had previously been lost to responding to problem behaviors.
BEACONS schools use a data based system for tracking and evaluating discipline problems known as the School Wide Information System (SWIS, May et al., 2002). SWIS was developed at the University of Oregon's National Technical Assistance Center. Schools use it by aligning their system for office discipline referrals with fields in SWIS' database. This allows the school's principal/vice principal to review all office discipline referrals with students and then provide the referral form to a staff member to enter the referral information into the school's master database. Schools can then review their office discipline data on a weekly or monthly basis by generating a report in the SWIS system.
The reports provide bar graphs regarding the location (classroom, cafeteria, the type of problem behavior, the student referred for the behavior, the grade levels of referring teachers, and other variables of interest. Once reports are generated, school discipline teams use the information to target where and how they will use their resources to make improvements in their discipline systems. In BEACONS schools, as well as in 100s of schools nationally, SWIS has been an efficient and effective electronic database that has assisted informed decision-making on the part of school teams. Results from hundreds of schools nationally suggest that when schools focus their efforts on a systematic and positive discipline approach, the number of office discipline referrals dramatically decreases. Results from one of our project school are presented below.
We also use the School Evaluation Tool (SET, Todd et. al., 2003) to give schools ongoing feedback about their school wide discipline system. The SET has seven critical features (scales) and a total scale. Data are collected during a half-day visit to the school during which our project staff interview the principal/vice principal, members of their leadership team, other teachers, and students. We also review printed materials regarding their discipline system and do an ecological assessment of the school by walking around the school. Once data from schools are gathered, we chart the data for schools and give recommendations for improving their discipline system. Below are the results and recommendations for a school in the project.
Once schools establish a positive school wide (universal) discipline approach, we work with a smaller team in the school, which we refer to as their Behavior Support Team. These teams work with teachers in the school to identify students who are at-risk of school failure due to their behavior. We conduct an inservice training so that the teachers can use the Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD) on a yearly or twice yearly basis in their school. The SSBD (Walker & Severson, 1992) is a validated screening tool that identifies about 10-15% of the school's students who may be at risk of failure due to their problematic behavior.
Students with externalizing (aggressive, defiant, oppositional, argumentative) or internalizing (shy, quiet, withdrawn) behavior are identified through nominations and ratings of their students. The SSBD takes about 1-1.5 hours for the teacher to complete. If students are found to be at-risk due to teacher ratings, we asked schools to contact parents and seek informed consents for these students to receive intervention and support so that they can improve their social and behavioral performance in school. When parents provide this consent, we work with the Behavior Support Team to develop and implement effective practices with these students that help the student learn to cooperate with teachers and peers in school and with family members at home.
Our results suggest that students who receive this early support and intervention have received fewer referrals to multidisciplinary teams for special education eligibility, shown improvements in their social and academic functioning based on reviews of both report cards and state achievement test scores, and improved their on-task behavior, as well as reduced the level of disruptive behaviors, to a level comparable to their typically developing peers.
The interventions that we have promoted with the Behavior Support Teams are those that have been validated as effective with at-risk children and youth and have included: a) methods for reminding and prompting positive behavior, b) self-monitoring programs, c) social skills instruction, d) increased supervision and monitoring of students during the school day, and e) frequent positive feedback and earning of positive attention and rewards for students.
We continue to evaluate the most efficient and effective means for teachers to use these ideas across the school day. Additionally, we have helped schools in their efforts to consistently use Functional Behavior Assessments (FBA). In our demonstration schools, the use of FBAs has made it possible for students with Emotional or Behavioral Disabilities to more successfully access the general education curriculum.
Finally, families have become more involved in school activities and supports. One school in the BEACONS Project developed a program to increase parent involvement and support. This program provides a range of family services, from monthly parent nights, parenting support groups and training, as well as linkages to community services. Reports from the school suggest that families who were not previously connected to the school have significantly increased their involvement in school programs.
In 2003, we began "scaling-up" the BEACONS project in an outreach project in 7 school districts. This project has been supported by grants from the US Office of Special Education Programs, Washington's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction's Department of Special Education, and Washington's Education Association. School districts presently involved in the project include: The Eastmont, Cascade, & Cashmere School Districts, Wenatchee/Leavenworth, Washington; The Evergreen School District in Vancouver, Washington; The Highline School District in Burien, Washington; The North Kitsap School District in Poulsbo, Washington; The Renton School District, Renton, Washington; and The West Valley School District in Spokane Valley, Washington.
References
A full copy of the BEACONS report can be accessed at the OSPI Website: http://www.k12.wa.us/Specialed/reports/task_force_behavioral_disabilities_report.pdf
May, S., Ard, W., Todd, A., Horner, R., Glasgow, A., Sugai, G. & Sprague, J. (2002). School-Wide Information System, University of Oregon, Educational and Community Supports.
Todd, A., Lewis-Palmer, T., Horner, R., Sugai, G., Sampson, N., & Phillips, D. (2003) School-wide Evaluation Tool, University of Oregon, Educational and Community Supports.
Walker, H. M., Horner, R. H. Sugai, G., Bullis, M. Sprauge, J. R., Bricker, D., Kaufman, M. J. (1996). "Integrated Approaches to Preventing Antisocial Behavior Patterns Among School-Age Children and Youth." Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 4 (4), 194-209.
Walker, H. & Severson, H. (1992). Systematic Screening of Behavior Disorders (SSBD): A Multiple Gating Procedure. Longmont, CO: Sopris West.
Doug Cheney, Ph.D.'s research interests include coordination of services to improve educational and community outcomes for students with learning disabilities and behavioral disorders, transition programs for secondary students with disabilities, and school structures that support inclusion of students with behavioral disorders in general education. He is currently president of the International Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders. He can be reached at dcheney@u.washington.edu.
Bridget Walker, M.Ed., is the Project Coordinator for the BEACONS Project at the University of Washington, Department of Special Education, as well as a doctoral student in the department. Formerly, she was the Behavior Specialist for the Shoreline School District, providing consultation, technical assistance, and in-service training regarding effective behavioral and academic supports and interventions for students with learning and behavior problems. Bridget also provided interagency linkages and case management for Shoreline students and families with intensive needs. She has also taught in several elementary and secondary special education settings, including an interagency day treatment program. Additionally, Bridget provides consultation and in-service training to school and mental health agencies throughout the Puget Sound region. Bridget is a Past President of the Washington Re-Education Association and served as the chairperson of the Training and Professional Development Subcommittee of the Washington State Task Force on Behavioral Disabilities. Bridget is currently President of the National Re-Education Association. She can be reached at bawalker@u.washington.edu.
For more information, please visit our Website at www.depts.washington.edu/beacons1, or contact Bridget Walker, BEACONS Coordinator at email: bawalker@u.washington.edu or phone: 206-221-3441.
This article is in the public domain and can be freely copied and used in trainings as handouts at parent and community meetings, and in creating your school or district programs. (Please cite all sources of materials you use.)
This information is provided by:
Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Special Education
P O Box 47200
Olympia, WA 98504-7200
(360) 725-6088
Fax (360)586-1631
E-mail: dgill@ospi.wednet.edu
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