How years of experience in behavior, school systems, and classrooms led to a more aligned, schoolwide approach to student success.
For years, the Strobel Education behavior team has worked alongside schools asking one important question:
What do students truly need to thrive and learn in school?
This work did not begin overnight.
The ROOTS Framework™ was developed through years of implementation, reflection, refinement, and collaboration around behavior management, learning, regulation, and schoolwide systems.
In 2013, our team members began implementing PBIS practices in schools. Over time, that work expanded into:
Each step added value. Each brought new learning across classrooms and across the school systems.
But throughout those years, one thing became increasingly clear:
No single strategy changes student outcomes.
Not PBIS alone.
Not SEL alone.
Not restorative practices alone.
Our team is in schools every week, and we keep hearing the same challenges come up:
⚠️frequent disruptions and off-task behavior
🔁inconsistent responses from staff
🧠teacher stress and burnout
📊escalating discipline referrals
👇low student engagement
🔄classrooms that feel more reactive than productive
As behavior specialists working in and out of classrooms, we began to see a consistent pattern.
The greatest impact did not come from one program or initiative.
It happened when adults were aligned across classrooms and across the entire school around:
It wasn’t one strategy.
It was how everything worked together.
As our Strobel Education behavior team reflected on the work we’ve been doing together, one theme kept resurfacing:
Being a Marigold.
Lifting others up.
Protecting their joy.
Creating a positive space.
Because the truth is…
The work we do in schools is a lot like cultivating a garden.
Gardens are ecosystems.
Each plant plays a role.
Growth takes time, intentional care, and the right conditions.
And just like plants, students do not thrive by accident.
They thrive when:
Over the years, we realized that effective behavior management and learning work the same way.
Students thrive when:
These conditions must exist not just in one classroom, but across the school as a whole.
We also learned something equally important:
Behavior is not simply a student issue.
It is deeply connected to the systems and conditions surrounding the student across the school day.
That realization shifted our approach.
We moved from:
And just like gardening, this work requires continual tending.
Reflection.
Adjustment.
Consistency.
Alignment.
Over the years of implementation, we refined what worked best for students and staff.
We:
Because schools cannot thrive when every adult is operating from a different system.
Students need consistency.
Adults need clarity.
Schools need aligned practices rooted in a shared, schoolwide understanding of behavior management, learning, and student support.
That work ultimately led us to create the Strobel Education ROOTS Framework™ as a schoolwide system.
ROOTS was designed to bring together research-based practices from:
…not as separate initiatives, but as one aligned system.
The ROOTS Framework™ is a schoolwide behavior management and learning system designed to align how educators support students across the entire school.
ROOTS is not a program.
It is not a one-time implementation.
It is a practical schoolwide behavior management framework that guides how adults create consistent environments, respond to behavior, and support student regulation every day.
The framework is built around five interconnected growth areas:
When adults operate within a shared system:
The ROOTS Framework™ was created to provide schools with:
ROOTS is not another initiative.
It is not another checklist.
It is a grounded framework designed to support every student, every day.
And maybe most importantly…
ROOTS reminds us that growth is never about one strategy or one person.
It happens when we intentionally cultivate the conditions together.
Just like marigolds in a garden, we all play a role in helping one another grow.
“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness…”
— Gertrude Jekyll
ROOTS is not about doing more.
It’s about aligning what matters most.
