Classified Staff and the Implementation of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports: A Case Study

Guided by normalization process theory, our qualitative case study explored classified staff members’ perceptions of their role in the implementation of School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports in schools within a large urban US school district. The authors’ analysis reveals that classified staff members’ gleaned knowledge of positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) and their role in implementation haphazardly through the trickle-down of secondhand, informal information from certified staff (administrators and teachers). This practice limited staff members’ understanding of roles, tasks, and responsibilities in implementation (individual specification) and the shared understanding of PBIS (communal specification). To the extent that classified staff members were internalizing PBIS practices (e.g., positive reinforcement for meeting behavior expectations), informants described their use as commonsensical but not due to any formal training opportunities provided to them. District and school leaders triangulated this finding, describing classified staff members as integral to PBIS implementation but providing no explicit, purposeful, and consistent plans to include them. In terms of policy and practice implications, we recommend that schools and districts implementing PBIS or any other school- or district-wide initiative be inclusive and strategic, involving classified staff in their exploration of possible initiatives, decision-making, planning, training, and evaluation. Educational leaders who opt to exclude classified staff members formally in their districts and schools’ collective efforts to implement school-wide initiatives do not fully leverage valuable human resources.