District Leadership Team Training Cohort Model

Capacity Building Sequence

Who Should Participate

District Leadership Teams-Teams should be composed of district and building based administrators interested in improving school climate, supporting all students and staff and continuous improvement. (Maximum of 12 Team Members)

What is Included in the Model?

Training/Reboot Training is offered over the summer for the whole team. The training is 12 hours total held over three days. The training supports the assessment, development, and execution of action plans that promote the capacity for sustainable, culturally and contextually relevant, and high-fidelity implementation of multi-tiered social, emotional, and behavioral systems of support and practices.

Communities of Practice- District teams will participate in ongoing facilitated communities of practice to monitor benchmarks of implementation, engage in ongoing problem solving, and technical assistance to support deepening implementation as they interact.

Individualized Technical Assistance (4 meetings Oct, Jan, April, June) - In addition to communities of practice which will focus on ongoing needs of the district cohorts, individualized technical assistance will be provided to focus on individual needs of the district. (Sept, Nov, Dec, Feb, May)

Why Should I Participate?

While initial training helps support teams in understanding and/or improving their knowledge and capacity related to PBIS installation, teams that receive ongoing support increase the likelihood of high fidelity implementation. As districts encounter setbacks, have questions, need support, systems have been established to support the team in problem solving, capacity building and delivering on action planning while continuously measuring outcomes.

High Fidelity School-Wide PBIS requires systemic support beyond the individual school, it is important that improvement efforts are supported at the district level. District-level support and guidance provide a supportive context for implementation at the local level.

We know the strong positive correlation between behavior problems and low academic achievement (Gest & Gest, 2005; Landrum et al., 2003)

We know that behavior problems can cause disruption in academic engagement. As a result, students may display lower levels of academic achievement due to a lack of engagement compared to students in a highly engaged class showing fewer behavior difficulties (Caldwell, Darling,Payne, & Dowdy,1999).

We know that the PBIS framework is supported by research spanning decades (Center on PBIS, 2020). Study after study confirms the positive impact these systems and practices have on improving student outcomes. The evaluation brief, "Is School-wide Positive Behavior Support an Evidence-based Practice?” (Horner, Sugai, & Lewis, 2020) and the article "Examining the Evidence Base for School-wide Positive Behavior Support” (Horner, Sugai, & Anderson, 2010)3 each lay out some of the research and provide additional resources to explore the topic further.

We know that ongoing job embedded professional development is necessary to provide educators with the skills, time and feedback necessary to implement new practices(Joyce and Showers, 2002; Darling-Hammond, 2012). Quality of teaching is the strongest school-based factor that can improve student learning and achievement (Hanushek, 2011; Nye, Konstantopoulos, and Hedges, 2004; Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kain, 2005). School Leadership is second only to teaching among school-based factors that have been shown to positively impact student achievement, and this factor is especially effective in traditionally underserved schools (Leithwood, Seashore Louis, Anderson, and Wahlstrom, 2004).