Behavior Solutions, with Dr. Jessica and Dr. John Hannigan

In this episode of Unpacking Education, we’re joined by Dr. Jessica Djabrayan Hannigan and Dr. John Hannigan—educators, authors, and national consultants—for a powerful conversation on shifting from reactive discipline to proactive behavioral support. Drawing from their experience and research-based frameworks, Jess and John challenge common misconceptions around student misbehavior and unpack how schools can replace punishment with targeted teaching. You’ll learn how their work, including Behavior Academies and Don’t Suspend Me!, equips educators with actionable tools to support students’ behavior and growth and, by extension, transform school climate. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

Behavior Solutions, with Dr. Jessica Hannigan and Dr. John Hannigan

Unpacking Education Podcast Transcript

Dr. John Hannigan 0:00
A bully doesn't stop being a bully because you send them home for three days. If that's all you've done, you've done nothing to prevent it from occurring on your campus again. And so you've got to teach them.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 0:09
What could we do then to help them get the skills that they need and understand that in life, you can't do things like this? It's going to impact yourself and others.

Rena Clark 0:19
The topic for today's podcast is behavior solutions with Dr. Jessica Hannigan and Dr. John Hannigan. Unpacking Education is brought to you by AVID. AVID believes in seeing the potential of every student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org. Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I'm Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 0:54
I'm Paul Beckermann.

Winston Benjamin 0:55
And I'm Winston Benjamin. We are educators.

Paul Beckermann 0:59
And we're here to share insights and actionable strategies.

[Transition Music] 1:03
Education is our passport to the future.

Rena Clark 1:08
So our quote for today is from the introduction to the book Behavior Solutions. And the authors, who include our guests for today, write: "Educators should view misbehavior as the absence of an academic or social behavior skill. Misbehavior or organizational struggles are an educator's cue to fill that gap by teaching the expected skills."

Okay, gentlemen, who would like to go first today?

Winston Benjamin 1:40
I mean, I'll take a dive into this. I think all action is communication, right? A baby's crying is communication—I'm either hungry or whatever. So a student being young sometimes doesn't have the ability to really explain how they're feeling or how they're thinking, and their actions communicate what they're feeling internally.

So I think it's absolutely important for educators to take a moment and try to figure out what are they trying to tell me? Is it behavioral? Is it academic? Is it social? What's really going on so that we can be able to understand how to move forward in the next way? I really appreciate the pause of this quote to say stop and think. That's what I'm hearing.

Paul Beckermann 2:26
Yeah, I'm with you, Winston. I think the quote really shapes the way that we respond to behavior that we either weren't expecting or don't appreciate. Instead of thinking about it as misbehavior, which feels like something that needs to be punished or something, I like thinking of it as that skill gap, you know, at least a much more positive and proactive approach. It's teaching and assisting of that missing skill. It's a helpful mindset to look at it rather than a punitive one.

Rena Clark 2:55
Well, I'm excited to dig deeper into this, and I'm also excited because we have not just one guest but two co-guests today joining us. So again, welcome Dr. Jessica Hannigan and Dr. John Hannigan to the Unpacking Education podcast. How are y'all doing?

Dr. John Hannigan 3:17
Doing great. Thanks for having us. Excited to be here. I had to come all the way down the hallway to join her.

Paul Beckermann 3:26
They're on screen together for those of you that are listening to us.

Dr. John Hannigan 3:30
We are married.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 3:31
We are married, and I was already in here working.

Rena Clark 3:35
Yes. Well, Jess is an educational consultant and author and an adjunct professor in the Educational Leadership department at Fresno State University. And then John is a principal at Ronald Reagan Elementary in Sanger Unified School District. Under his leadership, his school has earned multiple awards of excellence and achievement.

Together, they have authored several books including Don't Suspend Me, The MTSS Startup Guide, Building Behavior, and the PBIS Tiers One, Two, and Three Handbooks—a wealth of knowledge joining us today.

I would love if you could each just take a moment—that was the very formal introduction—but we like to ground our guests just to know a little bit more about who we're going to be talking to. So if you could just tell us a little bit more about yourselves on a personal level, we'd love to hear from you.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 4:31
Okay, I'll go ahead and start. My name is Jessica. My friends all call me Jess. Feel free to call me Jess. I started off as a school psychologist, so I was really in the realm of trying to blend academics and behavior right from the get-go. I started noticing huge gaps systematically in how we were approaching those factors.

That's how I started, and then I got into administration and district leadership. Now I'm honored to be able to work with educators throughout the nation to just help add tools in their toolkit.

Dr. John Hannigan 5:15
And myself, I am John Hannigan. I started in the classroom. I was a classroom teacher. Thought that I was going to do that for the rest of my life until my principal tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "Have you ever considered administration? I think you'd be great at it. You're great with the kids, you're great with the families."

That's when I started my journey. Then I became an instructional coach, then a vice principal at a middle school with 200 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, then principal at Ronald Reagan. Then I was at the county level supporting principals. I was actually an administrative leadership coach for principals and admin, and part of those responsibilities I also supported the juvenile justice facility, the juvenile hall, supporting with their behavior systems as well.

But now I do this full-time, so now I'm just consulting around the work of the behavior academies and behavior solutions and Don't Suspend Me. Those are keeping us relatively busy these days.

Rena Clark 6:15
Well, what a wealth of knowledge we have joining us today.

Winston Benjamin 6:15
Thank you for setting the stage on who you are and your knowledge base, because a lot of times it's valuable to understand where these statements are coming from because it sounds counterproductive to the idea of how people talk about schools, right, or how teachers talk about student discipline.

What are some of the most common misconceptions educators have about student behavior so that we can help demystify or just help set the stage? What are some of those common misconceptions educators have?

Dr. John Hannigan 6:50
I think this question goes right in alignment with the quote that you opened with. I think one of the most common misconceptions that we'll see is that a student's disruptive actions are seen as a personal attack or disrespect towards me, the educator. And it's a communication of needs—unmet needs—like seeking attention or dealing with external stressors. But then we internalize it as educators and take them as personal attacks or the students being disrespectful.

As we support schools across the country, we ask them what are the common referrals? Disrespect is overwhelming. And that in itself as a term is just—there's so much to unpack there. It is that we as adults are getting in power struggles. We're pretty rigid with our binary choices—either do this or else—and students, when given binary choices, will choose to dig in and engage in those power struggles.

Then the adults internalize those as taking them personally, and then it's usually met with punishment instead of identifying what they're communicating and teaching.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 8:05
And if I could just add to that, I think a common misconception is that punishment all of a sudden equals the behavior's fixed, and that's not the case. It's a band-aid approach. We know that with over 30-plus years of research, including the school-to-prison pipeline, we know that it's just leading to larger negative outcomes for our students and the community.

So we need to make sure that we flip that around. While we have our students with us, instead of thinking about everything we cannot control, we could help while we have students with us to turn that narrative around.

Paul Beckermann 8:52
So how do we do that? I mean, how do we flip the script from that reactive discipline to a proactive skill-building support?

Dr. John Hannigan 9:01
I think just addressing those root causes through empathy, creating those conditions on our campus that are predictable, supportive environments for students to thrive in, rather than just setting "this is the traditional school day" and then using—I don't want to say fear and punishment—but when students misbehave, it's usually met with the hammer.

We don't have tools in our toolkit to support a student, create a sense of belonging, emotional safety, predictability, structure that students would thrive in. We just kind of tell them to do it or else, you know, in some of those environments that we see.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 9:43
And we always—I mean, we're blessed to work with educators throughout the nation, and we don't pretend to know everyone's school, job, or community. But what we do know is what best practices look like nationwide. And it really lands on a systematic approach, meaning it doesn't just land on one human being.

I think that's what happens a lot. I think when we're not in a place where we're all on the same page and we're clear on supports and structures, it starts landing—and I agree, I would be frustrated too if it's all just landing on one teacher who's taking it all in.

So there has to be this balance of, okay, what does it look like school-wide? What does it look like in our classrooms? What does it look like for friends who need more help? What does it look like for friends who really need more help? How are we opening up these communication channels where we're all hands on deck, we're all in, but we're focusing on the child but also taking care of each other? That requires a systematic approach.

And the number one indicator of success that we've seen is the mindset of the administrator leading that work. In all these years, if the administrator doesn't believe in this work to help all—make sure this is our family, this is our community, we're helping each other, we don't talk about kids like that, we don't talk about families like that, we don't take things personally—you know, we're rolling up our sleeves and doing what we need to do. That's what's going to make the biggest difference.

Dr. John Hannigan 11:29
I don't know if there's another element of the educational system where the decision to keep a kid on your campus or to send them home for three days or five days or whatever that suspension is—there's one gatekeeper, and that's a school administrator, the person with that administrative credential.

There's none of our English language development supports, any of our small group instruction for literacy—there's always additional stakeholders that are intervening to support and give those students what they need. But when it comes to discipline, if we've got an administrator that thinks increasingly punitive punishments are going to now allow this student to acquire those skills not to re-engage, it's not accurate.

But these seem to be the same ineffective practices that schools are repeatedly engaged in. And a lot of what it does is communicate to a student: you're not worth it, you're a burden. Then that spiral continues. Students come back more disengaged, more disenfranchised, and it just continues.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 12:31
And if it's working, why do they keep doing the same thing over and over again in middle school and then in high school and then beyond? So it's not working. We have to look at the entire system and take a hard look and also challenge our mindsets and beliefs.

Rena Clark 12:50
And then just to add on to that—and I know I've been in education now 20 years and there's been a lot of shifts, and that includes just the amount of trauma that I see students experiencing, the role of stress, and even bringing in stress based on technology. Digital stress is—I mean, I have teenage children. I was not experiencing these things.

So just knowing that, thinking about all these unmet needs and repeated behaviors and challenges, how do we address this, especially maybe as we're dealing with educators that have gone through these shifts or have not been part of that experience themselves?

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 13:35
And if I could just add another layer to that too, what we've been seeing nationwide—and I'm guessing you all have been seeing it as well—is the adults have also gone through a lot. When we're working with schools and districts, we acknowledge: look, we see you, we know some of you are right here right now trying to be mindful, trying to be present, trying to listen, and you are using every skill that you have to do that.

Imagine kids that are trying to develop those skills and learn how to use them trying to do the same. And we already know the research around trauma impacts learning, behavior, attention span, mood, and so much more. So yeah, I think it's multi-layered too. Even starting with the adults and making sure we're okay as well is huge. We're seeing that a lot.

Dr. John Hannigan 14:38
And I think again, going back to addressing those root causes through empathy—when we do see the trauma and the stress, those chronic stressors that students are coming into our learning environment with, that brain wired for survival, fight, flight, freeze.

To de-escalate when we're seeing that, we can't meet their emotion with more emotion. That's where we need to be the calm, cool, collected one, connect with those students, being empathetic, non-judgmental, and finding common ground.

I like how you also said unmet needs. That's where I know a lot of us in our credential programs, when we were getting our teacher credentials, we always know about Maslow's hierarchy and all that. But it hits those first three rungs: physiological needs. That's where all this trauma and stress—if students are coming in dysregulated, that is a basic physiological need just as important as food, shelter, water.

And then the next rung up is that safety. So just like you said, those unmet needs—safety, belonging, emotional support. Because that next rung up is relationships, which is where that sense of belonging—which is at an all-time low. Students don't feel connected to other students at school. They don't feel connected to adults. So that unmet needs just really taps into those first three rungs on Maslow.

Winston Benjamin 16:09
You've got me thinking about—I'm in the mix. I work with middle schoolers. Rena works with middle schoolers. We're in the mix right now. But you also write about behavior academies, right? What are those? What do they look like in action, and what makes them effective? Because again, since we're in the mix, we're looking for some ways of trying to support our students with those unmet needs.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 16:39
Absolutely. I'll start and then I'll have John add on. But John and I were both in a middle school too, so you're our people. The best—the best grades ever, but I think the highest need nationwide. I mean, the highest need nationwide.

But that's part of why we wrote Behavior Academies, because we were going out to schools and districts and we were hearing things like, "Oh, it's not working. It's not working. That's not working." And so we started asking, what's not working? Tell me what you're doing.

We have a quote that kind of framed our work around behavior academies, and I'm going to just say it: an interaction is not an intervention. An interaction is not an intervention. An interaction is great—keep doing it. Of course, I checked in, I made a referral, I had a short meeting with the student. Those are all interactions, but what we wanted to do was look just like we look at areas of need on the academic side.

You're not going to give a kiddo struggling with math multiplication facts or reading fluency and then wonder why math facts isn't improving. Well, we're doing the same with behavior. So we studied this for a long time and we realized, look, there's amazing specialists out there, there's already ready-made curriculum out there. But the thinking around an actual behavior intervention—the actual framework of what do you do when the students are in front of you? How can you teach them skills that they're going to actually add to their inner toolkit that they could do whether you are in front of them or not?

Which is key for middle school because we want them to be able to pull from those inner tools whether we're right there or not. So translation—and then I'll let John add to it—I remember having sessions where, okay, they're with me, we're working on it. "Oh yeah, what are you going to do next time?" "This is what I'm going to do." And then they go right in that situation and it's almost like they never saw me ever.

So that's what we wanted to look into. So we developed a framework of what do you do in the initial session to build that rapport? How do you get on the same page? What do you actually teach, and not just one time like a quick interaction? And then how do you, when you do wean off of this formalized intervention, how do you continue catching the students when they're winning? And then John's going to say the key component that's been a game changer.

Dr. John Hannigan 19:31
I think of them as the AVID for social behaviors.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 19:35
Oh my—and we love all things AVID, by the way.

Dr. John Hannigan 19:40
Our daughter was in AVID.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 19:41
Yeah.

Dr. John Hannigan 19:42
And it gave her those academic behaviors that she struggled with, that we just thought, well, you know, you're our daughter, so you just through genetics just have these skills. And we learned very quickly she did not. She did not. So it was very helpful to her on her academic side, and so I think of it the same way.

How do we teach students social behaviors when we're seeing that what they're demonstrating on this campus is not in alignment to what we, the adults, expect out of you? So how do we then systematically teach it? And that's what a behavior academy is.

So now these are those repeated low-level behaviors either in or out of the classroom that we target exactly what those behaviors are that they're demonstrating and say, okay, students who are able to keep their hands to themselves on this campus, what life skills do they possess? And so what we want to think of in that same term of, I struggle to read, you're going to teach me how to read. You're going to see exactly where fluency's breaking down, and you're going to teach me, give me additional time and support to get me on track with my reading or whatever that skill is.

But when it comes to behavior, it's just a lot of times repeated punishments are now going to acquire these skills. It's not. So a behavior academy really targets those skills.

And what we've seen are now—like Jess said, an interaction isn't an intervention. A lot of schools will do an interaction. "No, I checked in with them. Oh, we're good." And then they blame it for not working, where it's like you've still never taught this kid a skill, so they're going to keep re-engaging in those same behaviors.

And now what we've seen, because behavior academies last academic school year was the first full year it's been out, we've got middle schools that have 100% exit rate. Any student that was entering an academy is now exited, and that recidivism rate is zero. We have high schools that had 30, 25 have exited. Elementary schools, 100% exit rates.

And so what we're seeing is when you teach these students exactly what to do instead, build that inner toolkit—when they're triggered by something that happens to them at school, someone cuts in front of them, the water falls, whatever, instead of just shoving that kid out of the line, they know how to respond instead. It sounds like a crazy concept, but—

Rena Clark 21:59
Does not sound crazy to me.

Dr. John Hannigan 22:01
What makes it unique though—and here's kind of the kicker, and this is where there's nothing like this in education. But you're probably going to start hearing a lot of it probably in the next over the next three years.

What we tapped into was sometimes a lot of the reflections and worksheets—it wasn't building that inner toolkit. Students just revert back to what was familiar. Someone cuts in front of me at the water faucet, I shove them out of line, even though 15 minutes ago we were just working on this skill.

But what we found was it was training the wrong parts of the brain. And so what we leverage, we tapped into, was the research and thinking around mental imagery and visualization.

What we've seen now—and this is just, this isn't our research, this comes from the sports psychology world from the early 1980s from the University of Chicago—they did a study of shooting free throws. What they did was they had group one physically practice free throws. Group two didn't even touch a basketball, just mental imagery, visualization—the perfect free throw, the ball leaving my finger, perfect rotation, perfect swish. Group three did neither.

Group one saw a 25% increase in their performance. Group two saw a 24% increase, almost indistinguishable from physical practice through imagery. And so what the researchers found was it actually rewires the same neural pathways in the brain as actual physical activity.

And so that's where, as we build these inner toolkit skills for students, we do use mental imagery and visualization to help them and then give them safe space to practice those newly learned skills. And what we're seeing is 100% exit rates to 0% recidivism.

Very long answer to your question, but we're really excited about it.

Winston Benjamin 23:55
No, no, no. That was great. That's awesome.

Paul Beckermann 23:58
So some of the teachers that are listening are probably thinking, well, something's going to happen in my classroom or with a student, and there's going to be this big escalation of this conflict. You said you don't want to match negative energy with negative energy. So do you have any practical strategies that teachers can use in the moment to kind of just de-escalate things a little bit?

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 24:23
Yeah, I always—my head always goes back to the preventions of how we're supporting our school and our teachers. Okay, what are some of those best practices within your classroom? What are some of these behaviors you're going to start to see? How do you not take it personal? How do you also self-regulate when you're in those scenarios? So that's number one. It shouldn't absolutely all land on the teacher.

But when they are in that situation, I think for me what's always helped me is just humanizing yourself. Either the last one out or having that one-on-one conversation with the student. And of course, the investment of getting to know your students is going to be really powerful to do this. But being able to notice when a student's off or something's going on, and instead of going at it with them, giving them a minute, get the other students going, and having that conversation with them privately, maybe even a little step outside, trying to see: are you okay? Do you need a splash of water in your face? What do we need to do to get you through?

Instead of coming at it: you're late again, you didn't turn it in again. Because we don't know—I call it, especially in middle school, there's like an underground world. We don't know what is triggering that student, but we automatically sometimes assume it's us.

So I think first off, don't assume it's you. Take a minute and just humanize the scenario. Okay, have you ever had an off day or a moment? What would you want? And then if possible, try to have that conversation. If it's already escalated, then also understand, you know, know what procedures you have in place to get help instead of continuing to engage in that type of behavior. That's what I would say.

Dr. John Hannigan 26:30
Yeah, to Jessica's point too, it can't be done out in front of the whole class. I mean, they're going to save face in front of their peers every single time. They're backed into a corner, they're going to snap.

And so outside in the doorway, being empathetic and non-judgmental: "Partner, what's going on? What do you need from me? How can I better support you?" That's a very disarming experience for a student instead of, "Why didn't you take the journal out when I told you to?" And it's just wall goes up, in one ear, out the other.

I think finding common ground too, just trying to agree on a small point where now we have common ground. That's again another disarming experience. Offering choices—because again, when we start talking in binary, either do it or else, they're going to dig in.

And so again, that goes back to trauma and chronic stressors too. That's a very disempowering experience for a student. And so to feel like I'm giving them a little more control when they live in chaos and life is out of control, to give them choice, voice, agency: "Partner, what's going on? What do you need from me?"

Again, just it's not about me. It might feel directed towards me, but it's not about me. And so that's where how can I try to connect with this student in the very moment, not doing it in front of the whole class?

Rena Clark 27:54
Yeah, and it's helpful to have some of those skills for us to use individually. You're really talking about how this needs to be a systematic approach. And so thinking maybe a little more systematically about how schools can replace suspension with restorative instructional responses and do that in a way that is going to be helpful.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 28:19
And one thing, just a quick tip in regard to—I mean, whether it gets to a bigger incident or not—just some of our schools have a quick code. For example, B1, B2, B3. Let's say it's B. The B stands for behavior. So that way it's a quick code if you do radio.

B1 means can I just have an adult for proximity near? Maybe they could come in and just help, kind of be here. Maybe they'll help get the situation back in a good place.

B2 means can you cover my class for a few minutes so I could step outside and have this type of restorative conversation?

And B3 means I need help. I'm dysregulated, the student's dysregulated.

So that way there's also this kind of safety for teachers of if I do need help, if it does get to that point, there's some sort of process. There's other ways you could do that. But instead of "he's doing it again, come in here," it's more of a "here's, I need help." And the admin or designee or whoever is coming in also knows.

But in regard to the question with suspensions, when we were both admin, we started noticing when you look in a cumulative file of a student who's typically continuously engaging in these behaviors, when you look in that cumulative file, it's the traditional approach of discipline since younger years all the way up to middle school, high school.

And we started noticing that we're calling parents sometimes and they're like, "No, my kid didn't do that. No, he doesn't do that at home." Or, you know, that kind of thing. I don't know if you've ever heard that. So we were like, you know what? And I'm not saying all—there was a lot of very responsive parents and guardians as well. But we started realizing this isn't working. If it was working, it would have probably been working years ago.

And so we wanted to try something different. And at that point, we didn't know what we were going to do, but we were like, you're not going home. And we started thinking about it, and in a way...

Dr. John Hannigan 30:44
Let me say why. They're going home on a suspension and they're in the office communicating, "Here's my online Xbox code," since they knew they were getting a vacation for the next three days. And so that's where it started. We're like, "Oh yeah, no, no, you're not going home. You're not going home. We don't know what we're doing, but we're not sending you home."

That's where this work started with our Don't Suspend Me work.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 31:07
And as we were thinking about the Don't Suspend Me work, the quote that was kind of the foundation—just like the quote for behavior academies was "an interaction is not an intervention"—we actually need targeted re-teaching of life skills.

For Don't Suspend Me, our quote was: if a student's struggling to read, you don't send them home and expect them to come back reading fluently. But if a student is struggling to behave, we sometimes send them home and we have a magic number—three to five days, two to three days—which has no evidence that backs it up, and it's more for the adults. And we expect them to come back all of a sudden behaving.

So that kind of framed our thinking, and we were like, okay, what can we do then to help them get the skills that they need and understand that in life you can't do things like this? It's going to impact yourself and others.

So that's where the approach came in of, okay, what can we do to restore between myself, other students, myself, the adult, myself, the community—after, not in the moment when everyone's frustrated, and it's not forced. What can we do to reflect? So what tools are we adding to the toolkit to help students see beyond just their right now immediate response, how it impacts others and their future? And then what can we actually teach them? So what are those life skills?

Next time you are in that scenario, what can you do instead? And then how are you going to earn this trust back? Because you've broken trust.

So our alternative discipline or Don't Suspend Me framework requires a team approach. When you do have an incident like that, you're getting stakeholder input, including the student at times, especially for older students. And you're coming up with: what are we going to do to restore? What are we going to do to reflect? What are we going to do to teach? And how is this student going to earn that trust back?

Sometimes our discipline was 10 days long, 15 days long, and it doesn't just land on one person. It's a community approach. The secret behind it is we're not giving up on you. We're not giving up on you. We're going to be relentless. We're going to make sure you know that we're doing this because we love you. If we didn't love you, we would do the other way.

Dr. John Hannigan 33:36
That's what we always say. A bully doesn't stop being a bully because you send them home for three days. If that's all you've done, you've done nothing to prevent it from occurring on your campus again. And so you've got to teach them.

Just like Jess said, I mean, and that's where I know there's a balance because teachers want to feel supported too. And it's like, absolutely, you're 100% going to be supported in this. But what makes you feel that the only way to feel supported is kicking this kid off my campus for five days?

If we've done—if that's all we've done—he's coming back on day six and he's coming back to your class. So if that's all we've done, he's coming back more disconnected, more disenfranchised, and the cycle continues.

And if you look at even a lot of research and statistics with the school-to-prison pipeline, if you look at students repeatedly suspended by eighth grade, it mirrors identically students not reading on grade level by third grade. And so an increased likelihood of becoming a dropout again because students feel disenfranchised, disconnected. What's the point? These people don't care. I don't care. And it just continues.

And so even working in juvenile hall, to be honest with you, we did empathy interviews with the students and open-ended questions: how could we better support you? And we were blown away. It was "show us you care, teach us when we're making a mistake." I mean, they did some hardcore things in the community. But at the end of the day, they're still kids. And at the end of the day, they still want to impress the adults and let the adults know: show us you care.

And so it doesn't matter if it's day one in kindergarten or alternative ed high school settings. I mean, at the end of the day, these are kids. And when we're seeing anything that's not in alignment to what we expect as adults, we've got to find a way to systematically teach and then communicate it to our teachers so that they know it wasn't just the kid wasn't suspended.

And I think that's what a lot of—I don't know what state y'all are in. We're in California, and that's a dashboard now. We have a dashboard that's the five-by-five where schools are ranked on suspension. So we've got a lot of schools in the state that are blue and green on the dashboard that are "yay, look at us."

But you go and talk to teachers and they're like, "Yeah, they just put them in this room and have a paraeducator babysit them and they just don't log it as a suspension." And then they're chasing another metric, patting themselves on the back for being blue and green on the dashboard, and it's like your teachers are up in arms and feeling like they're not supported.

So this does need to align. Our work—trust me, students are begging, "Please send me home. Please don't make me do this stuff." When they earn their trust and privileges back, they don't re-offend, they don't engage in those behaviors because they're taught what to do instead.

Winston Benjamin 36:27
So you've stated this word several times, and you're talking disconnect. You talked about the teachers' reality, the students' realities. What do you see as the biggest disconnect between the policies that are being asked and implemented and the classroom realities? And how can administrators do more to support or sustain their behavior system, to change their behavior system? What are the disconnects? And how can administrators do something to shift that?

Dr. John Hannigan 37:04
Well, I see a lot—with the change in policy and ed code, that schools feel an urgent need to change practices. But I think the most frustrating thing that I see is what leadership are doing, or just dumping it back to the teachers. And it's like, you need to fix it. Don't send—so then teachers are feeling like I've lost control if I send a kid to the office.

So then they just send them to their colleagues, you know. "Hey, go cool off in the room next door." And then they just don't log it or send a referral. And there's just this resentment and frustration where teachers don't feel supported and they're blaming these policies that maybe sometimes are well-intended. But if there's ineffective leadership supporting it, where "no, no, my teachers 100% absolutely have to feel supported with student behavior, but fear and punishment isn't the way that we're going to have these students acquire these skills."

And so I think sometimes there's disconnect with the policy and what's now happening in the classroom is now we're feeling like we have to just dump it onto teachers, and it's a school-wide systematic approach.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 38:19
And if I could add, if you don't believe, you're going to find loopholes, and that's what's happening. And so there's also a disproportionality in school discipline for students of color and students with learning disabilities nationwide, even with federal law protections, especially for kids on an IEP with a behavior plan. And there's still disproportionality.

So I do think there's that disconnect, and sometimes there's policy, and then all of a sudden, you know, let's say there's a principal who wants to engage in other means of correction or restorative practices. But at the district office, let's say they're not—they're claiming they're following that policy. But when they have, you know, an influential mother comes to the board or whatever, all of a sudden it reverts back. "Go ahead and suspend them."

It's almost like we're doing it for the adults rather than the students. And for me, that's the most disheartening when you get to that place because how are you going to make a change if the person leading is not willing to do that?

However, I do also have to add that's why we wrote Behavior Solutions in partnership with Mike Mattos and Austin Buffum, because we wanted to make sure there was clarity on: okay, how do we align all the systems, processes, humans, policies, to match what we're saying we're doing here?

Because when we do that work well in our model schools right now nationwide, we're seeing 95% of students responding to clarity and school-wide and class-wide systems. We're seeing about 4% needing academies like we just talked about—very formalized. And yeah, other friends are just okay with some interactions. And then we're seeing about 1% needing intensive—like the behavior is on fire, we need intensive supports.

So that's why we wrote Behavior Solutions, because it doesn't land on one human. And if we're going to follow these policies and structures in place, we need to be on the same page.

And we're not just going to talk about it. I will say I was at a school the other day and they had this big old banner up: "We're a platinum PBIS school." Okay, so I walk in and I walk into this one classroom and it says "zero tolerance." It's like this big old—like, not ed code, it was their district's—like, up on the wall, "zero tolerance." And the way they were speaking about kids—and by the way, this school was, I think it went to first grade, first grade, maybe second. And the way they were speaking about kids—

Dr. John Hannigan 41:38
It's a primary school, primary school, just—

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 41:41
I mean, K-1 or K-1-2. "Assault." I mean, I can't even—I tried to block it out of my brain because—

Dr. John Hannigan 41:50
Sometimes they'll use language like, "I was assaulted by a five-year-old." It's like you almost try to—not matching in human eyes—like dehumanize that, like by using just violent extreme rhetoric to try to take away the fact that this kid is five years old.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 42:06
I mean, K-1 or K-1-2. "We're a model positive school." But right when you walk in, that's what you see and that's what you hear. No, you're not. No, you're not.

Winston Benjamin 42:16
Thank you so much for doing the work that you've been doing, because you've not only provided teachers with tools, you've also given opportunities for individual students to be heard. But it's time for us to switch to our next portion of our conversation. What's in your toolkit?

[Transition Music with Rena's Children] 42:32
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? Check it out.

Winston Benjamin 42:43
Paul, Rena, what's in your toolkit?

Paul Beckermann 42:47
Mine's not super specific, but it goes back to building those relationships, right? If you keep a human—I mean, preserve people's dignity. If there is something that happens, take it to the hallway, you know, and find that common ground together. I just think that's key.

Rena Clark 43:09
Yeah, that praise in public and—I want to say redirect in private. There you go. So thank you. And I know when I was doing a lot of my admin work, the power struggle was the number one thing that I would see as being problematic in the classroom.

But I just really appreciate the work that you're doing, and it's nice to know because I just don't feel like there's a ton of resources. As you've said, it's been the same thing over and over and over. So check out some of your books, and you could talk about those different books. I'll let you share here in a moment. You know, Don't Suspend Me—you're talking about—so check out some of their books. Great resources that you can find.

And actually, actually, have you jump in. Where can we find some of your books? How can we get those?

Dr. John Hannigan 43:57
I mean, pretty much Amazon, unless you're going to bulk order, then you can go with the publisher. But Amazon is always an easy one.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 44:02
Yeah, and depending your jumping-in point, we try to—I mean, our big thing is by practitioners for practitioners. We're a family of educators. We know that we need things that work and that make sense. So practical, yeah, so doable. So all of our resources are designed to do that.

Behavior Solutions is the big one. That's the entire system. But definitely recommend it for systematic looking at the big picture. But it could also be utilized if you just want to look at interventions or if you just want to look at classroom—you know, the classroom preventions.

Don't Suspend Me—great resource for all just to kind of—there's a belief mindset survey in there, just kind of getting you to switch from that traditional mindset to teach behavior like we teach academics. And for admin, 100%, there's tons of starting-off tools in there for you.

Dr. John Hannigan 45:05
And check out Behavior Academies. You'll be blown away with the way that we used mental imagery and visualization. So we have eight different academies based on 95% of the challenging behaviors we see on campuses across the country. And it's a skill a week. So there's eight skills, so six to eight weeks, a skill a week. And then we give two replacement behaviors through mental imagery and visualization. So if you like one over the other, pick one to use with that skill. But it's a great resource.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 45:37
And we wrote that for—a parent could grab it and look at an area and say, you know, "I want to help my kiddo with emotional regulation skills or motivation or organization." A teacher could say, "You know what, I want to help my whole class with this. I want to pull some of those internalized tools and use it as a whole class."

But definitely, if a kiddo is needing additional time and support with repeated needs, that means what we're doing hasn't transferred into a new productive habit yet. And so definitely 100%, for that, check out Behavior Academies to help change the behavior for the long term. And there's tons more. But I think those three tools are a great place to start.

Winston Benjamin 46:23
And I'm just going to throw in an extra one in there. I would love all our listeners to read Pushout: The Criminalization of Young Black Girls by Monique Morris. I think it's really powerful to talk about the school-to-prison pipeline for young boys of color, but also the impact of what's happening to our young girls of color.

Going back to John's conversation about disrespect and how those words mean very different things for young girls of color and how they're impacted by this structure. So all of their work and—

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 46:56
Yeah, agreed. And there's so many great authors and resources out there that are helping advocate for what we have made a priority for our—I think our calling. So we want to save lives, and that's what our tools are designed to do. But we want to make sure everyone is supported in doing it.

Paul Beckermann 47:23
Wow, so many powerful things to think about here. We're going to try to distill it down to our one thing.

[Transition Music] 47:29
It's time for that one thing. It's that one thing.

Paul Beckermann 47:41
Okay, it's one thing time. We got our work cut out for us today. But what's the final thought that each of you have for this episode today? Rena, we can start with you.

Rena Clark 47:53
I just think it's always important—I know we can be escalated, we are human and dealing with a lot ourselves—but it's just humanizing the scenario. I appreciated that and just addressing through empathy. It's so important, and it sounds really easy and it can be very difficult in those moments.

So I'm constantly—before I respond, I still do this to this day, even to my own children—it's like that deep breath and counting to three makes such a big difference in the way I can look at a situation and think, okay, am I responding in empathy? No, I'm just responding in anger because I want to yell back at you. So if I can do that pre-thinking, it's really important.

Paul Beckermann 48:36
Winston?

Winston Benjamin 48:38
For me, it's the phrase "an interaction is not an intervention." A lot of times my teachers are like, "But I talked to them." You are there for a year. They got a lot of other things going on next year. So I just really love the approach of making actions intentional, making interventions intentional.

Paul Beckermann 49:06
That's good. And I'm stuck on "we're not giving up on you," because so much of this work really comes back to that, right? Do we care enough about these kids to not give up on them and to let them know that we're not going to give up on them? That really resonates with me.

All right, Jess and John, you get your final one thing as well. What would you like to leave our listeners with today?

Dr. John Hannigan 49:33
I just go back to when Rena said "unmet needs." I was so—that was the trauma, stress, those things. But unmet needs brought me right back to my credential program when she said that. I was like, the first three rungs on Maslow—physiological, safety, belonging—those three aren't met, you're not going to get to critical thinking and all those other higher rungs on Maslow. And so it goes right back to my school 101 with the early credential program.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 50:06
And for me, I just—I mean, I just want to say thank you to you, even just today, just knowing there's other educators with the same mindset, there's other leaders with the same mindset. So just don't give in. Don't give in to the pressures of talking about kids in a negative way, being in that negative group text talking—you know, from a problem, like fixed behavior mindset is what I call it.

Just always think growth, growth mindset for yourself and the students. And I think that's my secret weapon—it's not optional for me. It's not optional to give up and to be okay with it. So I appreciate having you all here today. But just in general, just continuing to build that community of like-minded educators who are in it for the kids.

Dr. John Hannigan 51:09
And if I could add one more thing to the one thing—

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 51:12
You can't!

Rena Clark 51:13
We do it all the time. We do it all the time.

Dr. John Hannigan 51:16
I just want to express my gratitude to every teacher out there working their rear ends off, coming in, showing up every day. And I know that it does impact our self-efficacy when sometimes we are on the receiving end of those behaviors. It does make it feel like maybe it's me, maybe kids today are different.

Nope, you're in the same boat in the same storm as every educator on the planet. And so working in a systemic approach, collaborating with your colleagues, you're not alone. But just again, just go back to addressing those root causes through empathy. But just want to say thank you all for all you do to support kids.

Rena Clark 51:58
Thank you. And thank you for joining us today and providing us with, I think, just some mindset practices and also just reminding us that it's not us alone. It really is about a larger system, but we do play a key part in that system.

So again, thank you so much, Dr. John and Dr. Jessica Hannigan. Check out their books, support them, and then hopefully maybe we can have you back again sometime. You know, in that three years when this becomes huge, we're going to have you back.

Dr. John Hannigan 52:28
That's right.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 52:30
We would love that.

Rena Clark 52:31
All right, thank you so much.

Dr. Jessica Hannigan 52:32
Thank you.

Rena Clark 52:35
Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 52:38
We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org where you can discover resources to support student agency and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Paul Beckermann 52:51
We'll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education.

Rena Clark 52:55
And remember, go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 52:59
Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 53:02
You make a difference.