New Equity-Focused Guide Empowers Educators to Better Serve Students

Bloomington, Ind. (February 16, 2022)— In Supporting Underserved Students: How to Make PBIS Culturally and Linguistically Responsive—published by Solution Tree—authors Sharroky Hollie and Daniel Russell Jr. offer a road map for aligning positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) with culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and learning.

In theory, the authors say, PBIS is an effective method of creating equitable educational environments that serve all students. However, they contend that in practice it often falls short, especially when concerning historically underserved students. The disconnect between cultural responsiveness and PBIS creates a gap in PBIS effectiveness that often leaves Black and Brown students with disciplinary disproportionality and academic disparities, say the authors.

“It is critical that schools undergird their PBIS frameworks with CLR not only to mitigate racial disproportionality in exclusionary discipline but also, more important, to transform school environments so they are truly validating, affirming, and welcoming for students from historically underserved cultural backgrounds,” they write.

In the book, Hollie and Russell provide educators with practical strategies for aligning, assessing, and activating culturally responsive practices for PBIS. They also offer guidance on how teachers can validate and affirm students’ cultural behaviors, and how they can build and bridge those behaviors to the academic and social skills students need in order to succeed.

“When culturally and linguistically diverse students can see how their cultural ways of doing and ways of being are both explicitly and implicitly valued,” the authors say, “it develops a stronger connection among them and the classroom environment, teacher, and school setting.”

Supporting Underserved Students: How to Make PBIS Culturally and Linguistically Responsive is available to order at SolutionTree.com.

About the Authors
Sharroky Hollie, PhD, is a national educator who provides professional development to thousands of educators in the area of cultural responsiveness. Since 2000, Dr. Hollie has trained more than 150,000 educators and worked in nearly 2,000 classrooms.

Daniel Russell Jr., EdD, is the coordinator of research and development and lead cultural and linguistic responsiveness coach for the Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning. He specializes in providing training on how to align PBIS with cultural and linguistic responsiveness.

Learn more about Solution Tree.