TPC _Journal-Vol6_Issue_3-MTSS-Full_Issue

The Professional Counselor /Volume 6, Issue 3 271 (FTE) from .60 to 1.20 to support this goal, thus adding a part-time bilingual counselor early in the first year of implementation. Practices grounded in cultural validation and support. The change in school population led to more intentional conversations of culture in teaching and learning, validating the backgrounds of students and families. First and foremost, the universal practices that staff engaged in focused on community and acceptance. For example, the school principal left time in the master schedule for all classroom teachers to implement morning meetings , as recommended by the Responsive Classroom © Approach (Kriete, 2002). Daily class meetings are in line with culturally relevant practice as they lead to teachers and students knowing each other in the creation of a classroom community (Bondy, Ross, Gallingane, & Hambacher, 2007). As the team implemented culturally responsive PBIS, the school counselor, in consultation with bilingual teaching staff, integrated Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) strategies (Short, Fidelman, & Louguit, 2012) in the behavioral lessons. SIOP includes strategies in lessons that ensure that English language learners have the necessary background information to learn the material presented. As such, the team ensured that expectations were taught in culturally relevant ways. In addition, the teaching of expectations included recognition of the different backgrounds of students. For example, one of the behavioral lessons given to teachers close to winter break involved discussion of different student and staff beliefs that might be practiced over the break. Being respectful in this case transcended outside of traditional definitions of respect to include knowledge of others’ beliefs. Further, discussions among the leadership team in year three acknowledged the lack of overarching student understanding of the school expectations. For example, staff was not engaging in larger discussions about why respect can lead to success in life. As such, the team integrated the all-encompassing theme “Be A Learner” and situated the teaching of all expectations under this framework. In this way, staff, students and families could discuss how this is relevant in school and life, thus reflecting the perspectives of students and families (Swain-Bradway, Loman, & Vincent, 2014). The PBIS team, along with school staff, discussed the inclusion of an acknowledgement system with intention. Because of the aforementioned concern about extrinsic reinforcement in the form of tickets, acknowledgement tickets were often given to groups and classrooms of students. The PBIS team placed more value on group gathering of tickets than individual. For example, each classroom had a bucket in which to collect tickets. They would bring their tickets to community gatherings to meet schoolwide goals, which would result in schoolwide celebrations focused on learning and community. For example, students would be encouraged to take part in a pajama day or be given 20 minutes on a specific day to engage in a fun activity, such as Drop Everything and Draw. These activities served to reinforce the positive behavior displayed by students. Data that led to culturally valid decision making. The leadership team regularly used data to in- form the practices taught and reinforced in the school. Total ODR data was collected each year and demonstrated decreases in overall number of referrals despite increasing enrollment (see Table 2). In addition, the school counselor regularly broke down data by grade level, socioeconomic status, race and location. This data was then discussed monthly at grade level meetings during which general problem solving could take place, whether focused on a specific student or group of students. Ad- ditionally, the data guided decisions at monthly PBIS leadership team meetings. The team regularly examined program fidelity. The SAS implementation average rose over the years, reaching fidelity of 84% in year three (see Table 3). Moreover, the PBIS leadership team used the SAS subscales to de-