Responding to Inappropriate Behaviors

Welcome!
• Advance organizer:
• Review of CASE foundations
• Overview of CASE approach to
inappropriate behavior

• Objective:
• By the end of this module, you should
be familiar with using CAES practices to
respond to inappropriate behavior.

Review: CASE Basics

§ Remember the four keys to the CASE:
🔑 Being supportive and helpful in all situations with students.
🔑 Focusing on appropriate behavior and what’s going well.
🔑 Being proactive and preventative
🔑 Building strong relationships with students

§ The other Big Idea:

§ Think about how we support academic behavior.
§ Now, think about supporting social behavior the way we support
academic behavior.
§ Our students will make mistakes, and we must continue to provide
support to help our students be successful.

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 Being Proactive and Preventative
§ Before thinking about how to respond to major and minor behaviors (in the
moment), consider how we can prevent inappropriate behaviors from occurring and
teach students more appropriate ways to get their needs met.

§ First: Building strong relationships with our students helps us be more aware of any
special circumstances (i.e., setting events), possible triggers (i.e., antecedents) or
needs (i.e., functions) might impact a student’s behavior.

§ Second: We use what we know about a student and their behavior to help set them
up for success.
§ For example, a student who yells, swears, and throws things when asked to
work with peers may be more successful if they can pick the peer they work
with or access a preferred task after engaging in a group activity.

§ It’s easy to get caught in the cycle of just responding to inappropriate behaviors
instead of thinking proactively and preventatively.

§ When there are inappropriate behaviors, use those examples to reflect and identify
opportunities where we could have behaved differently that might have changed the
outcome.
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Responding to Non-CASE Behaviors

Responses to inappropriate behavior

§ Each site has a response to inappropriate behavior document that defines four
response levels with increasingly intensive responses.

§ Remember: punishment ≠ accountability.

§ Accountability happens through thoughtful and logical consequences and
there should always be an instructional component.
§ Yes, we want to reduce future occurrences of the behavior – but if the student
doesn’t learn what to do instead, we will just keep increasing the severity of
our consequences until we’re out of options.

§ We want the student to make better choices next time – that’s our goal – but we
have to teach the student what to do “next time” and make it worth their while to
select the new behavior.

§ To guide our responses, we consider two categories of inappropriate behavior:

minor and major.

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 Minor and Major Behavioral Errors
What’s the difference?

§ Minor behavioral errors don’t align § Major behavioral errors have a

with the CASE expectations as
defined in the matrix, for example
(and this list is not exhaustive):
§ Disruptive off-task behaviors,
such as inappropriate
language, being out of seat
without permission, touching
others’ belongings, not
following directions, or arguing.
§ Non-disruptive off-task
behaviors, such as sleeping,
refusing to participate, or doing
something unrelated to current
activity or assignment.
significant impact on the environment,
others, or the student, for example
(and this list is not exhaustive):
§ Impact on environment
§ Property destruction
§ Pulling fire alarm
§ Impact on others
§ Fighting/physical aggression
§ Interfering during a crisis
§ Physical/sexual threats or
harassment
§ Stealing
§ Impact on self
§ Possession of contraband
§ Elopement
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Minor behavioral errors: What to do in the moment

§ If safety is not a concern, rely on behavior-specific error correction whenever
possible and your response to inappropriate behavior document.
§ Remain supportive and helpful; remind the student of what they should be doing
and limit attention for inappropriate behaviors.

§ Continue to reinforce students who are meeting expectations.

§ Ask if the students needs help or what they need to be successful.

§ Offer supports (e.g., academic support, brief break from the current task, speaking
with a preferred staff).

§ If minor behavior persists, students may miss CASE points/CASE Cash and should
engage in a restorative conversation/task (according to the site’s response to
inappropriate behavior document).

§ Let’s take a deeper look at specific error correction.

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Specific Error Correction: Think about this

§ Student [answering “10 x 10 = ?”]: “The answer is 20.”
§ Staff: “Not quite, Amber – go ahead and try that again. Write it out if you have to.”
§ Student [after a minute]: “Oh, my bad – it’s 100.”
§ Staff: “Right, you got it – it is 100. Good. Let’s do the next one.”

§ If the student was unable to correct the error, the staff member would likely try
again, have the student write out the process, provide manipulatives, and if the
error persisted (and was part of a larger pattern of mistakes), seek help from an
instructional specialist.

§ What does this look like if we apply this approach to a social behavior mistake?

Remember: We use specific error correction (when responding to minor errors) to

remind students of the behavior expectations as stated in our CASE matrices.

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 Specific Error Correction: Now do this

§ Student [to a nearby peer]: “This class f***ing sucks.”

§ Staff: “Jericho, remember to be considerate during instruction – please stay quiet
unless you have a question. Let me know if you need any help.”
§ Student is quiet.
§ Staff: “Thanks for being considerate, Jericho.”
§ Staff continues with instruction.

§ Think about inappropriate behaviors as “social behavior mistakes” and apply the
instructional mindset: identify error, remind about what’s expected, let the student
try again, and acknowledge when the student does it correctly.
§ No, this isn’t going to work every time – but it’s where we should begin.
§ This potential behavioral incident becomes opportunity to remind students of
the appropriate behavior, have them practice it, and get reinforced for it.
Much better interaction!

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So, what does specific error correction look like?

§ First correction: point out what student should be doing instead and give student a
chance to self-correct. If he does, praise and move on.
§ “Michael, please log on to the computer and start your iReady. Let me know if you
need anything from me.”
§ Second correction (after a few minutes):
§ “Michael, please get engaged and start your iReady – is there something I can do to
help you get started?”

§ Third correction (after a few minutes):

§ “Michael, I’ve asked you a few times to get started with your iReady on the
computer. Let me know what I can do to help.”

§ Fourth level (after a few minutes):

§ “Michael, please get started on your iReady. Do you need my help, or maybe a
break?”

§ Fifth level (after a few minutes): Disengage for the time being, checking in periodically to
see if the student needs a break or any help.
§ “Michael, I’ve asked you several times to start your iReady. Please let me know if
you need my help or if you need a break.”

Mention points only if it’s a positive, motivating reminder for a student.

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Responding to Major Behaviors

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 Major behavioral errors: What to do in the moment
§ Any time that there is imminent danger or student is highly escalated (i.e., student
is in danger of hurting themselves or someone else), rely on your crisis
intervention training.

§ If safety is not a concern, focus on preventing further escalation by remaining

supportive and helpful; encourage students to access previously identified coping
strategies (e.g., taking space outside, speaking with therapist/social worker, fidget
items, mindfulness exercise).

§ Consider relocating the rest of the class, if possible, to limit attention to

inappropriate behaviors. Be sure to teach this process to all students proactively.

§ Continue to praise students who are meeting CASE expectations.

§ When student is no longer escalated, engage student in the restorative

conversation/task process.

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Major behavioral errors: What to do in the moment

§ Remember: Being supportive and helpful does not mean that students can
flagrantly ignore expectations and still access all privileges and reinforcement;
being supportive and helpful means holding students accountable through our
responses and helping them making better choices next time.

§ Our behavior is the single most important factor in whether or not a student
behavior escalates.

§ When we force compliance for the sake of compliance (rather than developing a
plan to help the student be more successful in the future), we may find ourselves
in power struggles that erode the student-staff relationship and make it harder to
provide effective behavioral instruction and support.

§ Rely on your matrix, site documents, and established practices.

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Restorative Conversations
§ Restorative conversations help students discuss and understand both how their
behavior impacts others and how the behaviors of others may impact them.

§ When facilitating a restorative conversation, actively listen (without judgment) and

validate what the student is saying. Students need to know that we care about
their experiences and feelings.

§ Restorative conversations will revolve around 4 reflection questions:

1. What happened?
2. Based on what happened, how were you impacted? How were others
impacted?
3. What have you thought about since the situation happened?
4. What’s the plan for making a better choice next time?

Resources: More in-depth restorative conversation and restorative tasks resources are part of
the learning resources attached to this module. Reach out if you need additional support!
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 Wrapping up
§ Even in the face of challenging and inappropriate behavior, remember the keys:
§ Being supportive and helpful in all situations with students.
§ Focusing on appropriate behavior and what’s going well.
§ Being proactive and preventative.
§ Building strong relationships with students

§ Our goal is to help students make better decisions next time, and it is our responsibility
to set them up for increased success.
§ Punishment, in the absence of teaching more appropriate behaviors, will not help
students demonstrate more appropriate behaviors in the future.
§ If we approach inappropriate behaviors as “errors” (rather than deliberate acts),
we are more likely to maintain our supportive and helpful approach.
§ Students need to see the value in the community, in their relationships with
others, and the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards associated with improved behaviors.
We must continue to support their learning, just as we would with academics.

§ Reach out anytime! We’d love to hear from you: behaviorsupport@sesischools.com

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