Assessment

Project
PBIS Staff Assessment Survey
Ryan Clark

Overview:
School Wide Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) is being
implemented into Lincoln Public Schools (LPS). This is a five-year implementation
plan that has many parts and stages. This is the first year and the PBIS committee at
Lincoln Southeast (LSE) has been working hard to bring PBIS into the school. Many
factors have to be taken into consideration when unrolling a system as massive as
PBIS into a high school as large as LSE. This means that the processes have to be
done in stages with the careful introduction of specific pieces of PBIS into the daily
routines and systems of LSE life. These specific pieces of PBIS have been inserted
and now the committee wants to assess how they are working before proceeding
with next years plans.

Purpose:
The PBIS assessment survey is designed to help the PBIS Committee make decisions
as to what pieces of PBIS the team is going to focus on next. James Popham tells us
in his book Formative Assessment Why, What, and Whether, Remember, for
formative assessment (as we define it) to exist at all, it must lead to instructional
adjustment decisions by teachers or learning tactic adjustment decisions by
students, and these adjustments will affect activities or efforts already in progress.
(Popham, p. 12, 2008). The adjustments driven by data that Popham is talking
about are the desires that the PBIS leadership team has for this assessment. It will
help us to know what messages or instructional adjustments to make to help LSE
staff better understand and master the concepts and expectations that PBIS and LPS
is asking of them. The information will also be used to help staff make their own
learning adjustments based on the data collected to help them better learn, apply,
and be successful with PBIS in their classrooms.

Conception:
During the January PBIS leadership meeting the team was brainstorm ideas for what
direction the committee needed to go for the upcoming year. I suggested that we
needed to assess what we had done so far this year to see what has worked and
what needs to be retaught. I suggested that we build a staff survey to gather data on
specific items of PBIS. This would tell us what the staff currently knows, how the
pieces are working, what needs to be retaught or strengthened, what information
we need to deliver, and what direction we need to head. I was in charge of
presenting the idea to the administrative leadership team at which point they
approved it and the survey was put into motion. The leadership team agreed and I
was put in charge of building the survey.



Design:

When thinking about how to design the PBIS survey assessment I had to first think
about what I wanted it to accomplish. Grant Wiggins writes in his article 7 Keys to
Effective Feedback that when building an effective assessment one needs to first
have a goal, then have an idea as to how to take action to achieve that goal, and
lastly receive goal-related information about his or her actions. This is the thought
that I kept in mind as I began thinking and building the survey assessment. My goal
was to make an assessment that would yield information about staff feelings,
thoughts, understanding, and use of PBIS. I wanted to get a look at where staff
members are at in their learning journey of PBIS. I also wanted an assessment that
the committee could continue to use to assess and monitor the staff as more PBIS
pieces get implemented. I wanted to look at the following three main areas:
classroom management, teacher procedure/interventions, and building wide issues.

Construction:
Once we had the three areas identified the team was able to start looking at specific
pieces that feel into those areas. PBIS areas that the team identified as important to
gather data on are teaching building wide expectations (classroom), the use of the
minor & major incidents for referrals flow chart (procedural), and increases or
decreases in overall negative behaviors (building wide). With this direction in place
I was able to come up with possible questions to help us get data that is specific to
the areas that were identified. See artifact A. These questions were then taken to
the administrative team for discussion and approval. See Artifact B and C.

The administrative team gave their suggestions and ideas as to what kind of
questions should be asked. I took the administration teams suggestions and put
together a draft of what the survey would look like with possible questions. See
artifact D. It was also suggested that the possible timeline for delivery be to present
the survey to the Department Chairs at their next meeting, and then to give it to the
whole staff at the next staff Flex session. These suggestions were then taken back to
the PBIS committee team and looked over for any other possible suggestions or
changes that needed to be addressed.

The PBIS committee edited the questions so that they would better fit the goal of the
survey. Questions were changed, some were removed, and others were added. See
Artifact E. This allowed the survey to be more affective for gathering the data that
we set as a goal for it to gather. The suggested plan to present the survey to the
Department Chairs at their meeting, and then give the survey to the whole staff was
agreed upon and set into the calendar for March 24the and April 8th. The next step
was to make an easy to follow and understand printout for the Department Chairs
meeting. See Artifact F. This information was given to the Department Chairs for
their review. Currently I am waiting to here back from them concerning their
comments or suggestions.



Delivery:

The survey is on schedule for distribution and completion by the entire staff during
the building Flex session scheduled for April the 8th at 3:15. See Artifact G. The
survey data will be collected into a spreadsheet where it will be sorted and
distributed to the team for analysis. See Artifact H. This data will help the PBIS
Committee decide which adjustments, decisions, and directions it needs to take so
that the whole staff can be successful.

Conclusion:
This project has helped me understand what it takes as a leader to make an
assessment that looks to collect data from a whole staff. Many different aspects,
ideas, and differences have to be taken into consideration. This is not a quick
process, as it has had to go through many different approval processes. I
understand that this is due to the important nature of the assessment and what it
means to the future decisions that the PBIS Committee are going to make. These
decisions will affect every classroom, teacher, and students in the school. It is
important that the assessment be done right so that the most useful data is
collected. It is also important that the survey assessment is able to be expanded
upon and used again to assess future staff understanding and learning. I understand
that for assessment to be affective it must be goal driven, specific, and expandable so
that the learning progress can be tracked, and instruction/implementation can be
adjusted as the staff continues to learn.

Reference Page.

Wiggins, G. (2013). 7 Keys to Effective Feedback. Educational Leadership, 71(1), 11-
16

W. J. Popham (2008). Formative Assessment Why, What, and Whether.
Transformative Assessment (pp. 1-22). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development. Retrieved from
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX3248000008&v=2.1&u=linc7467
3&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=c4b67569a11e10097bfd233cb6c78f58