Solving the Big Problems

Have you ever had a big problem at your school that you just weren't sure how to handle? Maybe you have a grade level that is running their teachers ragged or you've suddenly had an influx of cyberbullying. You've talked with your grade levels, you've consulted with admin but you feel like you are all working hard with no real plan. Enter the Team-Initiated Problem Solving Model  from PBIS. This is a model for problem solving you can use whether or not your school implements PBIS. Let's explore this model using the example of a 3rd grade team with high levels of behavior concerns.

Identify Problem with Precision 

The first step is to identify the problem. I mean really identify it. In our example, we can't stop at the number of behavior referrals for the grade level. We need to dig deeper to see where, when, and by whom the behavior concerns are occuring. Are most of the referrals coming from the same class? At the same location? Are they "big" behaviors (like fighting) or repetitive "small" behaviors? 

In our example, the team discovers that the majority of referrals are happening at the end of 3rd grade recess when the 5th graders join them on the playground for a few minutes. The 3rd grade teachers note that many of the behaviors occur when 5th graders join in games that are being played by the 3rd graders.

Identify Goal for Change

Now that the problem behavior has been identified with detail, it is time to create a goal for change. If you guessed that the goal should be in SMART goal format, you would be correct! As a rule, create a goal that would define when the problem would no longer be a problem. For our example, would that mean that there are no discipline referrals at all during recess? This seems unlikely, so the Problem Solving team decided to look at the dicipline referral levels for other grade levels to establish a norm. The team determines their goal to be:

Office discipline referrals for 3rd grade students during recess will decrease to one or fewer per month.

You may have noticed that the goal is missing one SMART goal attribute- it is not time bound. The team isn't sure how long this will take so it is left open ended for now. However, the team should make really sure that their minutes reflect the time bound action steps so that the work does not stall.

Identify Solutions and Implementation Plan

Now we can finally problem solve! Often teams jump straight to this step without really identifying the problem with precision or creating a goal. This is problematic because you might be chasing the wrong problem and waste a lot of energy on the wrong work. In our example, the team knows that the problem is occurring in a 10 minute span of time. This really helps them to target their ideas for solutions.

The team brainstorms solutions that might support student behavior. They decide that increased supervision around student-organized play (like basketball) could prevent many of the disagreements that result in office discipline referrals. In addition, the teachers decide that they will review playground expectations daily for one week in both 3rd and 5th grade. Lastly, the counselor contributes that she can teach conflict resolution skills in 3rd and 5th grades. The team writes down the plan and chooses deadlines to ensure that the whole team is working at the same pace. 

Implement the Solution with High Integrity

You know those meetings where everyone says they are going to do something and then don't? Yeah, this isn't one of those meetings. Create a concise plan with action steps. Assign personnel to each action step and list how and when the solutions will be implemented. Don't stop there! As a counselor and leader, follow up with team members to check on their progress. Send a reminder before the next meeting to remind participants that they will need to be prepared to share their implementation with the team. 

​So what if your team doesn't implement solutions? If you are struggling with follow through, consider some clarifying questions:

• If the entire team invested in this goal? In our example, perhaps only the administrators are frustrated that students keep getting sent to the office and they are the only ones with the buy-in to implement strategies.
• Are the solutions reasonable? 
• Are the solutions sustainable? Maybe our solution was to have a staff member play the team games with students as the 5th graders transition into the playground. However, the staff member available to do so is on crutches or can't sustain the level of exercise needed to run up and down the soccer field.
• Does the staff responsible for implementing solutions have the necessary skills and resources?

Monitor and Compare to Goal

One of the action steps in your plan should be to monitor the impact of your solutions. Let's say our example team had a list of solutions they were going to implement. The administrators or counselor had been checking in on the solutions and their implementation. All seems to be going well. Do you want until the next meeting to look at the data? No! Just like we progress monitor with academic subjects, we want to progress monitor our solution to see if we are getting closer to our goal. For our example, the administrator can monitor the number of referrals that are coming from 3rd grade recess. If they are decreasing, we know we are on the right track. If they are increasing, we know we may need to call a meeting earlier than we had planned in order to regroup. 

Make a Decision

When your team comes back together, it's time to look at your goal and decide - has the problem been effectively solved? If yes, commence the happy dance. If not, it's time to start over. I know! You really don't want to. But we need to loop back up to our problem and make sure that we are defining the correct problem, that we have a reasonable goal, and that our hypothesis about the cause of the problem and the solutions that would eliminate (or reduce) the problem are sound. Lastly, it's time to be honest with the team about the fidelity of implementation. As we are working through our process, we can see where we might have gotten off track.

The Why

So, this seems like a lot of work. I can barely eat lunch every day, how can I implement a problem solving team? This is one of those work smarter, not harder moments. Everyone on your problem solving team is already spending a lot of time and energy on this problem. In our example, the teachers are spending a big chunk of recess dealing with conflicts, the administrators are seeing kids in the office over and over, and the counselor's mailbox is full of requests about conflict resolution. Most importantly, the kids are missing instruction, are upset, and may even be unsafe. If it's a BIG problem, it's worth it to solve it right. You got this.