Scaling Up Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports: Costs and Their Distribution Across State, Districts, and Schools

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a widely used multitiered prevention framework that embeds a systems approach for establishing behavioral supports for all students, across all levels of need, to achieve social, behavioral, and academic success. A growing body of research has documented the effectiveness of PBIS in schools with regard to a range of student outcomes; however, few studies have rigorously examined the costs to implement PBIS. Further, as many states have scaled up PBIS, consideration of the costs borne by different organizational structures is critical for understanding PBIS implementation fidelity and sustainability. This study utilized an ingredients-based costing approach capitalizing on both qualitative and quantitative data from multiple stakeholders to examine the total societal costs to implement multiple tiers of PBIS. Also examined were the distribution of costs across the school, district, and state levels using the same ingredients-based costing approach. Findings suggest an annual cost of $48.16 per student, the bulk of which occurs at the school level (average cost $27,363 per year).