School teams regularly meet to review academic and social problems of individual students, groups of students, or their school in general. While the need for problem solving and recommendations for how to do it are widely documented, there is very limited evidence reflecting the extent to which teams effectively engage in a systematic or effective…

Although there is a strong legislative base and perceived efficacy for multidisciplinary team decision making, limited evidence supports its effectiveness or consistency of implementation in practice. In recent research, we used the Decision Observation, Recording, and Analysis (DORA) tool to document activities and adult behaviors during positive…

This invited commentary includes observations about the article "Building Local Capacity for Training and Coaching Data-Based Problem Solving with Positive Behavior Interventions and Support Teams," published in the July 2011 issue of the "Journal of Applied School Psychology." In this article Newton and colleagues present an interesting field…