School-Wide Positive Behavior Support in High School

Abstract

School-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) is designed to promote positive teaching and learning climates supporting positive social behavior and academic achievement. As a proactive school-wide approach, all students and all staff across all settings are considered. This approach has been implemented in more than 5,000 schools across the United States to date, primarily in elementary and middle schools. High schools are complex organizations with multiple administrators, large numbers of staff and students, and varied expectations related to academic achievement and successful diploma completion. Although key features of SWPBS are similar across schools, specific implementation strategies often are different in high schools. In this article, the authors first delineate the critical features of SWPBS and then present results from a survey of sample high schools implementing SWPBS. They use survey results as a foundation from which to provide guidelines to school teams attempting to implement SWPBS in high schools.