Transformative change doesn’t happen in one shot or with one person, but many sites don’t have capacity for ongoing cycles of inquiry or community for new teachers… Which is why:
The Positive and Engaged Learning Community
We help busy administrators build community, support new or reassigned teachers, and keep kids in class, learning.
Reduce disruptions, build positive relationships, & increase time learning
The 'Positive and Engaged Learning Community' is a hybrid membership that includes:
An ODLE (On-Demand Learning Experience): 4 hours of modules plus templates and action steps for setting up the expectations, routines and procedures necessary to build a positive, engaged, learning community, all chunked into a step by step process to launch or reset your learning community
&
Live support: Ongoing, remote Community of Practice sessions with educators from all over the country, facilitated by engaging, knowledge experts.
We serve all kinds of environments, with a specialty in K-8 settings: individual teachers, schools, after-school programs and camps and large organizations like districts, CMOs and COEs.
Let's get those classroom management plans written, implemented, and refined!
On-Demand Learning Experience (ODLE)
Live Support: Community of Practice & Add-On Options
Content
MODULE 1
Foundations of Positive Learning Environments
Get oriented to child-centered frameworks (PBIS, MTSS, restorative practices) and learn a high-impact, concrete strategy you can start immediately.
MODULE 2
Classroom Management Plan
How to write a classroom management plan - your blueprint for success, full of strategies to prevent many harmful behaviors, and support positive behavior.
MODULE 3
Teaching New Behaviors
Proactively teach children effective skills, routines, and procedures to foster independence rather than compliance.
MODULE 4
Get Curious About Behavior
Reframe your understanding of behavior, unpack a specific challenging behavior that you are facing, and develop a new approach to individual and group support.
MODULE 5
Responding to Challenging Behavior
Effectively respond to challenging behavior in ways that maintain dignity, repair harm, and promote independence.
MODULE 6
Putting it All Together
Bring it all together so you can be ready to launch, notice and celebrate learning as it happens, make it stick long term, and keep your learning community on track!
BONUS Module
Schoolwide Leadership
For administrators and teacher leaders: How to cultivate a positive and engaged learning community at the school, district, or organization level.
We also provide leadership consultation and implementation support to align this work to your mission, vision, and values- you don't have to do this alone!
We facilitate ongoing Communities of Practice, plus instructional coaching, leadership consultation, and live professional development workshops.
Educators thrive when provided with knowledgeable and respectful support
Outcomes
Spend more time leading and teaching and less time on behavior management or crowd control
Feel more confident, more connected with your community, and less stressed
Identify and dismantle systemic barriers faced by historically and currently marginalized students
Specifically, participants will:
● Create a Learning Community Blueprint (includes a classroom management plan)
● Understand, prevent, and respond to challenging behaviors more effectively
● Reduce discipline referrals and the need for higher tier MTSS or RTI interventions
Over twenty years of supporting children with complex learning needs, we've seen that when adults are offered pro-active strategies to behavior management, the whole community benefits. We can't promise fewer suspensions, better teacher retention, or less administrator burnout, but ... that's what we see happening in settings that commit to the work.
For teachers and line staff:
Let us help you build (or refresh) your behavior and classroom management toolkit so your days are less stressful and more connected
For districts, organization, or school leaders:
You don't have to do this alone! We're here to help you lead transformative change
How can this help at a system level?
Many schools and community organizations face cyclical challenges of turnover, overwhelm, and burnout—conditions that erode the stability needed to support complex learners, including neurodiverse students, children who have experienced trauma, and those with unfinished learning.
The Positive and Engaged Learning Community provides an accessible entry point into the evidence-based Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) framework for Schoolwide Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (SWPBIS).
Research is clear: discipline referrals decrease and academic achievement increases when school-wide PBIS is in place (e.g. meta analysis by Lee & Gage, 2020). Yet, educators typically receive little training beyond basic classroom management (Flower et al., 2016). This gap in preparation contributes to persistent disparities in exclusionary discipline for children with disabilities (Cruz et al., 2021) and for children of color—particularly boys (Losen & Martinez, 2020).
Our approach bridges this divide by extending knowledge from the special education silo into general education and community-based programs, addressing individual, classwide and schoolwide practices.
While many factors remain outside a teacher’s or leader’s immediate control, it is possible to foster belonging and connection in a single classroom or across a system that looks like this:
Children
- Feel safe and secure, freeing up their cognitive resources to learn.
- Spend more time engaging with content than avoiding or disrupting.
- Develop independence, self determination, and confidence.
- Work together with adults as an interdependent learning community.
Teachers
- Feel in control, without being controlling.
- Teach content they love and see children authentically engaged in learning.
- Feel connected, confident, and less stressed.
- Go beyond just stopping off-track behaviors to teaching new, adaptive behaviors - lifelong skills.
Leaders
- Develop shared strategies for preventing and addressing challenging behavior.
- See a decrease in referrals and suspensions.
- Spend less time dealing with discipline issues and ‘putting out fires.’
- Support new teachers effectively and maintain a strong, dedicated faculty.
We're here to help you make this vision a reality with
Classroom Management
That Actually Works
This isn’t another dense book, or a sterile and scripted training. It’s not a bunch of random strategies to throw at the wall and see what sticks - our approach to group management and individual student support is aligned with research on PBIS, MTSS, and restorative practice models and refined through years of experience.
Our practical and actionable process increases engagement and participation with academic content, prevents challenging behavior and promotes independence.
Oh, and it's a framework, not a script: we'll help you make it your own, whether you're in a district school, a charter school, an independent school or even in an out-of-school time setting.
Positive and engaged learning communities boil down to the core elements of
Building positive relationships
Teaching children adaptive behavioral skills
And most importantly, believing that children can and want to learn
This empowering learning experience provides tools to bring these transformative elements to life for your team or for yourself.
As you see increased engagement and positive behavior, you'll also begin to feel a difference in your own self, moving from stress and overwhelm to confidence and satisfaction.
So, How Might This Help Build YOUR Community?
The Positive and Engaged Learning Community brings together video content, guided activities, and community to support inclusive and equitable learning environments.
This learning experience, and the actionable blueprint, provides individuals and schools or programs with the tools to:
Take a strengths-based approach to behavior
by shifting from a demoralizing focus on deficits to building on current strengths.
Promote independent learning
by developing children’s skills to make intentional and informed choices within your learning community.
Improve school conditions
by fostering a sense of belonging and inclusion.
Decrease educational achievement gaps
by providing all children with a more level playing field to access a fair, equitable, and high-quality education.
Support academic growth
for all children, including students who are most at risk of failing.
Develop your own skills
through high quality professional development (and earn CEUs!)
And because no two learning communities are the same…
We will meet you where you are
Whether you’re barely getting by, or have an MTSS or RTI framework in place but want to make even more time for learning and increase engagement, this learning experience offers guidance for different phases of the journey.
There is also live coaching included in all the packages. The teacher package is a great option to keep new teachers moving forward and feeling confident with classroom management, whether part of their induction process, BTSA, residency or when they're clearing the credential.
Success Stories
“Can't wait to try some strategies with my most 'difficult' kids! Makes me even more excited to be working with them.” - Special Education teacher ?
“Alexis is incredible to work with. She is extremely professional, knowledgeable, and flexible. There have been many instances where she adeptly took in the varied goals of multiple stakeholders and produced agendas and professional learning experiences that encompassed those goals and received high praise. Teachers, site leaders, and district leaders have expressed deep appreciation for Alexis and her vast expertise.” -District Administrator
“From the first session I had with [my coach] I left with new ways of thinking about my role as a leader, practical tips and strategies to immediately begin implementing, and an appreciation for all that I already AM in my role.” - Lower School Division Director
“All of our teaching fellows complete the ODLE, and participate in our in-house PLC. It's a huge boost to our early career fellows in developing their teaching 'presence', but even the senior fellows get value from it and it keeps us communicating more clearly with shared language and expectations for building our strenghts-based communities” - Fellowship Director, Words in the Wild
“My coach was … fantastic at presenting insightful questions to process through the emotional and physical aspects of being a teacher.” -Early Career Teacher
“I [got]concrete strategies to help me improve how I work with my students.” - Experienced Teacher
“I always appreciate the time to learn from others and hear the structures, strategies and success/ dilemmas colleagues are experiencing or trying out. I also value the time to think about my own next steps." - School Based Instructional Coach
“Looking at meaning behind behavior really helps [me] figure out how to address behavior.” -Educational therapist
“I'm moving to 3rd grade next year and thinking it through all again-learning community and routines/procedures.” -Experienced teacher moving from 6th grade to 3rd grade
Your Mentor on this Journey
Hi, I’m Dr. Alexis Filippini.
My own journey toward supporting children’s positive behavior started when I first taught small group reading as part of a research study in college. I had a ton of knowledge and training on linguistics, literacy, and even a decent amount of cultural competence, but was humbled within moments: A child hid under the table and the rest of the group dissolved into yelling and running around the library.
My amazing mentor, Dr. Michael Gerber, coached me through this and many more experiences, and my next job was as a behavior clinician supporting children with autism and their families. I earned my PhD in special education, and then took a job as an assistant professor at San Francisco State University and always remembered the power of strengths based coaching.
All that previous experience came in handy when I taught the “introduction to positive behavior supports” course for intern special educators at State.
I heard again and again that this was the the most useful class and the few general education teachers (who had originally enrolled just for the credits) wondered why it wasn’t part of their required curriculum.
Since then—2010—I’ve been training, mentoring, and coaching hundreds of teachers, leaders, and staff, in all kinds of environments. I'm often asked about behavior support, even when I'm speaking on other topics, so I made this ODLE!
While I'm your guide in the videos, I don't do any of this alone! My colleagues and I hae worked together to share the teaching foundations that make Words in the Wild student programs so impactful: a child-centered, strengths-based approach that blends positive behavior supports (PBIS*), trauma-informed and restorative practices, and genuine connection.
P.s. I still teach reading—mostly outdoors— at Words in the Wild where we build literacy skills through nature, curiosity, and scientific inquiry.
CONTINUING EDUCATION UNITS (CEUs)
Earn credits for your participation and classroom implementation.
Syllabus and Requirements for CEUsEnroll Now
The "Teacher" package is the original offering: ODLE + live Community of Practice, designed to balance flexibility with support.
We've added a "Leader" package ('train-the-trainers' model, by request) to support administrators who are guiding individuals or teams through creating classroom management or school climate.
For systems level capacity building and technical assistance, the "Everyone" package lists high impact options - please schedule a call to discuss.
Funding
We want to work with you to secure funding! These services are typically considered eligible for federal programs funding for public schools and private schools equitable services under the following titles:
Title I Part A
Provide[s] all children with significant opportunity to a fair, equitable, and high-quality education, for all students, including eligible students who are most at risk of failing.
PD for teachers of private school students served in Title I. (if applicable)
Title II, Part A
Strengthening the quality and effectiveness of teachers, principals, and other school leaders to increase student achievement.
High-quality, personalized, and evidence-based professional learning for teachers, instructional leadership teams, principals, or other school leaders.
Title IV, Part A
Provide students access to well-rounded education.
Improve school conditions for student learning.
How the Positive and Engaged Learning Community can help you meet these goals:
Developing a universal tier of positive behavior supports is a step toward a level playing field for children most at risk of disciplinary action or school failure.
This professional development includes the flexibility of a self-guided course and the personalized, live support of Community Coaching. The ongoing membership is more effective than a “one-shot” PD.
Children are more able to access academic content with clear behavioral expectations, the tools to meet those expectations, and strong community relationships.
FAQs
What other PD topics do you offer?
How long will this take to complete?
Our whole school needs to be aligned. How can this help?
What is the Community of Practice? Is it coaching?
I need CEUs for a salary increase / license renewal. Are they available?
Can I get group pricing?
We already have an SEL curriculum, is this still useful?
Is this about classroom management? Is it PBIS or MTSS?
Is there a money back guarantee?
Can administrators or program leaders take this course?
How do I pay? Is there a satisfaction guarantee?
Can teachers participate for more than 1 year?
Can I purchase just the ODLE (asynchronous course)?
More questions? Want to chat about how we might work together?
Request more information here or:
SCHEDULE AN INQUIRY CALLReady to work together?
Book an in-depth, 1-hour needs assessment here, or go directly to:
SCHEDULE A SET-UP CALL
Satisfaction Guaranteed
I've seen the material in this course support many, many learners and educators in many learning communities… but I also know you can’t know that for sure until you’re working with it yourself, in YOUR learning community.
That’s why you can join now, watch the videos, try out the exercises, and go through the process for 30 days… and if after that you’re unsatisfied for any reason just email us for a refund or to request a 1:1 coaching call.