Student Behavior
Behavior support is teaching. Clear expectations, developmentally sound responses, and attention to underlying causes protect both accountability and student dignity.
The official Element
Element 2B: Teachers communicate, model, practice, and sustain high standards of individual and group behavior that reflect, affirm, and respect diversity, and facilitate productive interactions to maximize opportunities for each student to learn and thrive.
What this Element asks of an educator
Behavior support is teaching. Clear expectations, developmentally sound responses, and attention to underlying causes protect both accountability and student dignity.
Read together, these indicators ask educators to make student behavior visible in planning, teaching, student experience, and follow-through. The aim is not to display every indicator in every lesson, but to understand the full range of the Element and select a focused practice to develop with evidence.
Official Example Indicators—and an SDLA reading
The Commission presents Example Indicators as illustrations rather than a comprehensive or required checklist. Their sequence shows the breadth of this Element and gives teachers, mentors, and coaches a shared language for focused development.
Recognize the underlying causes of student behavior
Official indicator: Recognize the underlying causes of student behavior, including developmental and individual social–emotional needs.
Use evidence-based knowledge to create developmentally appropriate systems and…
Official indicator: Use evidence-based knowledge to create developmentally appropriate systems and practices that support both individual and collective student growth toward skills that students need in order to meet standards of behavior.
Employ culturally responsive and developmentally appropriate and relevant norms
Official indicator: Employ culturally responsive and developmentally appropriate and relevant norms, procedures, and supports to strengthen positive behavior and celebrate success.
Create and maintain a climate where students feel a…
Official indicator: Create and maintain a climate where students feel a sense of belonging and responsibility for their own and one another’s learning and well-being.
Implement trauma-informed practices and developmentally appropriate positive behavioral interventions…
Official indicator: Implement trauma-informed practices and developmentally appropriate positive behavioral interventions and supports that apply restorative justice and conflict resolution practices with individual students.
Developing the practice
Teach the environment
Model, practice, and revisit relationships, routines, expectations, and ways of resolving difficulty.
Design for access and dignity
Arrange time, space, materials, supports, and responses so students can participate without unnecessary friction.
Listen to the climate
Use observation and student perspective to examine safety, belonging, challenge, voice, and the effects of adult decisions.
Evidence worth noticing
- student descriptions of safety, belonging, intellectual challenge, and voice
- interaction, behavior, participation, and transition patterns across settings
- a routine or environmental feature revised in response to evidence
- documentation of restorative follow-through or coordinated support
Evidence caution: No single artifact proves accomplished practice. Interpret evidence in context, center student experience and learning, use multiple sources, and avoid collecting identifiable information that is not necessary.
A pinch of data integration and digital learning
Digital systems can organize information, improve access, coordinate work, or shorten a feedback loop. They are valuable only when the educator can explain the human decision they support, the information they require, and how privacy, accessibility, equity, and professional responsibility are protected.
Panorama Student Success
Explore how a coordinated student-support platform may replace scattered notes with shared evidence and follow-through.
Questions for reflection and coaching
- Where is student behavior already visible in my practice, and what evidence supports that judgment?
- Which students experience the current approach differently from the way I intend?
- Which official indicator names the most important next area for growth?
- What is one affordable, manageable adjustment I can test, and what will I look for afterward?
- Whose perspective—student, family, colleague, specialist, or community partner—would improve the next decision?
Continuum of Teaching Practice: Element 2B
This Element-specific continuum describes how practice develops from Emerging through Innovating. Compare the teacher-practice descriptions with the related evidence in students’ experience, then identify a current strength and a purposeful next step.
How to understand and use this continuum for professional growth
- Begin at Emerging and read across. Practices described at earlier levels carry forward even when they are not repeated.
- Use evidence gathered over time to identify the description that most closely reflects current practice.
- A teacher may be at different levels in different Elements, regardless of years in the profession.
- Changes in students, content, grade level, school, or responsibilities may appropriately shift practice in either direction.
- Use the continuum for reflection and goal setting, not as a stand-alone observation or evaluation instrument.
Select a level to expand it. Select it again to return to the full comparison.
Teacher practice
The teacher begins to use knowledge of students’ backgrounds to establish high expectations, norms, and procedures for individual and group behavior.
Evidence in student experience
Students have an awareness of behavioral expectations for themselves and the group.
Teacher practice
The teacher co-creates developmentally appropriate norms, procedures, and supports for respectful individual and group conduct.
The teacher recognizes the underlying causes of behavior, including social-emotional needs.
Evidence in student experience
Students provide input on classroom norms and align actions to agreed-upon norms.
Students respond to individual behavioral expectations and provide information regarding their needs.
Teacher practice
The teacher models and reinforces evidence-based practices that include norms, procedures, and supports for respectful individual and group conduct and reflect the cultural values of the school community.
The teacher employs culturally and linguistically responsive practices that reflect, affirm, and respect diversity to support students’ sense of belonging and well-being.
Evidence in student experience
Students demonstrate respectful interactions with their teacher and peers.
Students increase positive behavior based on social-emotional supports.
Teacher practice
The teacher implements evidence-based practices to respond to student behavior in an instructive and restorative manner.
The teacher reflects an understanding of the social-emotional and developmental needs of students.
The teacher facilitates productive interactions to create a climate where students take responsibility for their own and each other’s well-being.
Evidence in student experience
Students demonstrate the skills necessary to meet behavioral standards.
Students take responsibility for their own and their own and each other’s well-being.
Teacher practice
The teacher leads and sustains a system of collective responsibility that ensures students take an active role in upholding and promoting positive behavioral norms for themselves and the group.
Evidence in student experience
Students demonstrate ownership by self-regulating their actions and supporting peers in meeting shared standards of behavior.
Source and attribution: Continuum language reproduced from the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, Continuum of Teaching Practice (2025), aligned with the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (2024). This publication by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing is not copyright. It may be reproduced in the public interest, but proper attribution is requested.