Example Job Description
Director of Student Behavior Supports
A leader who connects district behavior-support systems, staff coaching, prevention, and coordination of assigned behavioral intervention services with trustworthy evidence, equitable opportunity, and accountable action.
Interview Planning Resource
Possible Interview Q&A: Director of Student Behavior Supports
How to use this resource: Select questions that measure competencies established through the district’s current job analysis. Ask candidates the same predetermined questions under comparable conditions and evaluate responses against the same job-related criteria.
The indicators below describe evidence a strong response may contain; they are not required scripts or the only acceptable answers.
- Recorded incidents fall after a new coding policy. How would you interpret this?
Strong response indicators: Checks code changes, reporting completeness, referrals, removals, and student experience before attributing the decline to improved behavior or intervention.
- One group receives more exclusions. What would you examine?
Strong response indicators: Checks denominators, repeat incidents, referral sources, subjective codes, supports, instructional context, and procedural protections; identifies actionable barriers.
- An intervention plan exists but behavior worsens. What would you do?
Strong response indicators: Verifies actual delivery and fit, consults qualified practitioners and the authorized team, reviews environmental factors and safety, and adjusts supports through appropriate processes.
- How would you review a serious incident?
Strong response indicators: Prioritizes safety and required reporting, preserves accurate evidence, verifies current protections, reviews authorized staff actions, and follows documented corrective processes.
- A vendor offers automated discipline recommendations. How would you respond?
Strong response indicators: Rejects automatic consequential use, evaluates error and subgroup effects, protects privacy, and preserves lawful human review and student rights.
- How would you know staff training changed practice?
Strong response indicators: Uses observation, support delivery, incident documentation, learning access, staff feedback, and student experience; verifies sustained implementation rather than attendance alone.
- The behavior support and incident dashboard disagrees with source records. How would you resolve this?
Strong response indicators: Checks populations, dates, definitions, refreshes, joins and corrections for referral patterns, time lost from instruction, support delivery and student experience; reconciles with accountable owners, documents fixes and adds preventive checks.
- What evidence would you require before recommending this behavior support redesign?
Strong response indicators: Defines educational need, baseline, access and implementation measures, alternatives, cost and capacity; uses appropriate comparisons and uncertainty and specifies a review or exit decision.
- How would you protect sensitive records while helping teams act on referral patterns, time lost from instruction, support delivery and student experience?
Strong response indicators: Defines purpose and authorized access, minimizes disclosure, protects small groups, uses approved systems and retention rules, and consults responsible privacy and legal owners.
- A vendor proposes AI to automate recommendations in this portfolio. How would you assess it?
Strong response indicators: Tests the proposed use against district behavior-support systems, staff coaching, prevention, and coordination of assigned behavioral intervention services; reviews accuracy, subgroup errors, privacy, security, accessibility and cost, and preserves authorized human decisions and challenge procedures.
- How would you build staff capability to use referral patterns, time lost from instruction, support delivery and student experience well?
Strong response indicators: Uses authentic cases, verifies sources and denominators, explains missingness and uncertainty, coaches interpretation and checks whether evidence leads to useful changes in practice.
- What would your first 90 days as Director of Student Behavior Supports include?
Strong response indicators: Listens to affected students, families, staff and partners; maps authority and obligations, validates referral patterns, time lost from instruction, support delivery and student experience, identifies urgent gaps and proposes a focused plan with owners and review dates.
Position Description
The Director of Student Behavior Supports leads district behavior-support systems, staff coaching, prevention, and coordination of assigned behavioral intervention services. The district or employing agency should define the final portfolio, delegated authority, and relationships with other program owners.
The position examines referral practices, exclusion, actual intervention delivery, and student experience to improve supports; preserves student rights and the authority of individualized teams and qualified practitioners.
Reports To
Illustrative reporting relationship: Assistant Superintendent of Student Services or Special Education or other designated administrator. Confirm the locally approved structure and delegated authority.
Required Education and Credentials
Required
- Illustrative district qualification for review: master's degree in education, special education, school psychology, behavior analysis, educational leadership, or a related field; confirm the local degree requirement and permitted equivalents.
- Hold a valid California Administrative Services Credential or other authorization appropriate to the actual assignment. District HR must verify current authorization and any additional credential requirements against the final duties. Verify any additional professional authorization and supervision for assigned assessment, behavior-analysis, or clinical services.
- Complete district-required employment clearances and training in student privacy, nondiscrimination, accessibility, records, safety, and responsible use of technology.
Preferred
- Graduate coursework or sustained professional learning in applied statistics, program evaluation, improvement science, education data systems, or responsible AI for educational decision-making.
- Advanced preparation in education, special education, school psychology, behavior analysis, educational leadership, or a related field, inclusive leadership, family partnership, and coaching adults to use evidence effectively.
Required / Desired Experience
Required Experience
- Illustrative minimum for local review: five years of successful school behavior support, staff development, intervention implementation, and school or program leadership; confirm experience thresholds and permitted equivalents.
- Experience supervising assigned staff, coordinating partners, managing resources, and implementing improvement across the assigned portfolio.
- Demonstrated use of referral patterns, time lost from instruction, support delivery and student experience to investigate needs, verify records, evaluate action, and explain findings and limitations.
Desired Experience
- Experience with California district or regional program requirements, implementation monitoring, and improvement with diverse communities.
- Experience with a behavior support and incident dashboard, approved spreadsheets and tools such as Excel, Google Sheets, Power BI, Tableau, or equivalents; applied data-science literacy sufficient to collaborate with analysts.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Prevention and Support Design
- Lead positive, developmentally appropriate behavior supports and staff coaching with school, MTSS, special education, and student services owners.
- Support consistent referral and response routines, de-escalation preparation, and individualized assistance within professional authorizations.
- Coordinate required assessment and planning with qualified practitioners and teams; do not substitute general behavior systems for individualized entitlements.
Behavior and Intervention Evidence
- Validate behavior definitions, incident codes, repeat events, referral sources, and denominators; distinguish recorded incidents from underlying prevalence.
- Analyze removal from instruction, referral disparities, intervention access, delivery, and progress with appropriate student context.
- Evaluate support effectiveness using implementation, student experience, recurrence, learning access, and suitable comparisons; avoid behavior quotas or automatic labels.
Rights and Responsible Practice
- Coordinate current discipline, disability, restraint or seclusion, safety, notice, and records requirements with authorized legal and program owners.
- Maintain clear escalation, incident review, documentation, and corrective-action processes; protect sensitive behavioral and health information.
- Review behavior platforms and AI risk tools for validity, differential errors, privacy, accessibility, and human decision authority.
Leadership and Improvement
- Supervise assigned staff, contracts, budgets, and learning; ensure specialized supervision and authorizations match assigned services.
- Coach teams to examine environmental conditions and instructional opportunity rather than attributing every behavior concern to a student deficit.
- Report implementation, learning access, disparities, results and limits and perform related duties within the classification.
Required Skills and Abilities
Knowledge of
- Schoolwide prevention, positive behavior support, de-escalation, individualized support, and practitioner scope boundaries.
- Applicable discipline, disability, safety, restraint or seclusion, reporting, due-process, and confidential-record requirements.
- Incident coding, referral bias, time lost from instruction, intervention fidelity, subgroup patterns, and evaluation limits.
- Behavior and intervention systems, secure case records, audit trails, and responsible predictive tools.
Ability to
- Translate priorities in district behavior-support systems, staff coaching, prevention, and coordination of assigned behavioral intervention services into feasible plans, clear responsibilities and measurable follow-through.
- Validate referral patterns, time lost from instruction, support delivery and student experience using accurate sources, definitions, populations and denominators before making decisions.
- Evaluate implementation and outcomes, examine subgroup opportunity, and distinguish association from causation with qualified analytical support.
- Use approved modern systems and accessible visualizations; partner with data specialists on complex linkage, statistical methods or reproducible analysis.
- Protect confidential information, document consequential decisions, maintain professional judgment and escalate unresolved legal or policy questions.
- Lead staff and partnerships, communicate evidence and uncertainty clearly, and revise ineffective practices with affected communities.
Work Environment
- Work is performed in district offices, classrooms, school grounds, meeting rooms, and other professional settings, with remote participation as authorized.
- The position involves computer use, school visits, observation, facilitation, and detailed review of records, dashboards, assessments, reports, and communications.
- Work requires frequent coordination with school and district leaders, program specialists, students and families as appropriate, data and technology teams, fiscal and legal owners, and external partners.
- The employee encounters interruptions, competing priorities, sensitive student and personnel matters, and urgent concerns requiring calm, documented judgment.
- Workload may increase during planning and budget cycles, program transitions, monitoring and reporting reviews, public meetings, and urgent service concerns.
Other Requirements
- Successfully complete required criminal-record, fingerprint, and employment clearances.
- Complete a tuberculosis risk assessment and any examination required by applicable law or district policy.
- Maintain required credentials and complete district-assigned training in privacy, cybersecurity, accessibility, nondiscrimination, mandated reporting, and workplace safety.
- Protect confidential student and employee records; follow approved access, sharing, retention, incident-reporting, and records-request procedures.
- Travel between district offices, schools, professional-learning locations, and community meetings as assigned.
- Possess a valid California driver's license and maintain insurability when driving is an essential function; confirm the district's actual travel requirements.
- Occasionally work evenings, weekends, or extended hours for school events, public meetings, reporting deadlines, or urgent student and operational matters.
- Perform office and school-based activities involving sitting, standing, walking, communication, and computer use; confirm any role-specific lifting or other physical requirements through local job analysis.
- Perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation.