Assessment of Professional Development Systems: Improving Rural Special Education Services

Rural Special Education Quarterly, Fall 2003 by Rude, Harvey A, Brewer, Robin D

State Level Case Study: The Montana Behavioral Initiative

The Montana Behavioral Initiative (MBI) is a statewide initiative that was designed to develop and support community-wide approaches to safe, civil, and achieving schools (Fishbaugh & Furshong, 1998). The MBI process is described in a document known as the "MBI Blueprint" (Model Number One), and consists of five key indicators including staff training, team process, evaluation process, proactive support systems using best practices, and community process. Through the MBI safe school environments are built through school-community collaboration and direct student instruction to teach responsibility and respect. Professional development for educators is provided at two levels including the staff training and team process key indicators. Staff training is accomplished through a state sponsored summer institute that is conducted over five days at the Montana State University-Bozeman campus. Professional development is provided to participating school teams on strands identified through needs assessment strategies. In 2002, the strands that were offered included safe schools, early childhood, introductory concepts at the elementary school level, introductory concepts at the secondary school level, and advanced concepts.

Strategic planning processes (Model Number Two) were employed to identify the five key indicators that served as the priorities for achieving the vision of the MBI process. The mission statement of the initiative is "to assist educators, parents, and other community members in developing the attitudes, skills, and systems necessary to ensure that each student, regardless of ability or disability, leaves public education and enters the community with social and academic competence." The priority goals identified to achieve this mission are as follows: a) staff training that is based on research-based effective schools practices, b) shared educational decision-making to address issues of concern to students, c) proactive support systems using best practices that fosters the belief that all children are valued, and positive/proactive approaches to problems produce the most satisfying results, d) evaluation is a process aimed at using data-based decision-making in education, and, e) the community fosters the belief that the education of today's youth is a community responsibility.

The quality performance measures (Model Number Three) used in assessing the impact of the MBI process are based on the effective schools research on attitudes, skills, and systems measures (Cotton, 1995). Participating schools track a variety of measures including student attendance, numbers of student behavior referrals, and various attitudinal measures of student responsibility and self-efficacy. Skill measures include the proficiencies demonstrated by instructional staff members in employing validated instructional strategies and systematic data based interventions. Systems measures include parent and community engagement, school-wide approaches to interventions involving general and special educators, systematic staff development for school improvement, and ongoing program evaluation.