Positive Behavior Interventions & Support

The OSEP Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Education and 11 technical assistance units across the United States. The Center is directed by Drs. George Sugai (University of Connecticut, Rob Horner, (University of Oregon) and Tim Lewis (University of Missouri). The Center builds from a 10 year history of defining, implementing and evaluating PBIS across more than 9000 schools in 40 states.

The logic for the Center is based on (a) documented need for improving the social behavior of students in U.S. schools, (b) demonstrated success of PBIS to improve both student social behavior and academic performance, (c) demonstrated effectiveness of PBIS as a practical technology that can be implemented at socially important scales by actual implementers, (d) the value of school-wide behavior support systems on the education of children with disabilities, and (e) a current need to extend PBIS practices to a broader range of students, schools, and contexts.

The Center (a) provides the technical assistance to encourage large-scale implementation of PBIS; (b) provides the organizational models, demonstrations, dissemination, and evaluation tools needed to implement PBIS with greater depth and fidelity across an extended array of contexts; and (c) extends the lessons learned from PBIS implementation to the broader agenda of educational reform.