Behavior

The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) and the Bureau of Special Education (BSE)in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network (PaTTAN) developed statewide resources to provide effective behavior supports to school districts, individual schools, classrooms, and students. These services are also available, through mutually agreed upon written arrangement ( MAWA) with PDE, to preschool programs providing early intervention services. PaTTAN works collaboratively with local intermediate units to meet the technical assistance and training needs of Pennsylvania's school districts and preschool programs.

School districts are responsible for providing safe learning environments, while following the regulations protecting the rights of all students. This makes it necessary to carefully examine current policies and procedures when developing discipline measures. Discipline efforts must be focused on designing and implementing a positive and proactive school-wide and site-wide behavior support system for all students. Another focus is to implement effective instruction techniques to manage classroom behaviors and increase learning in all classrooms. Finally, we also recognize that a very small percentage of students will need a more intensive and individualized approach.

Additionally, a new resource has been created to assist schools and districts with positive behavior support. The Behavior Support in PA blog is meant to be an interactive tool for teachers and classroom staff. The blog will feature monthly topics and post related content on an on-going basis. Each post will contain resources and interactive comments to assist teachers and classroom staff with proactive behavior strategies. In addition to the posts the blog contains links to websites and additional resources for behavior support.