Tier 2 Behavior Goal Selection in Schools: A BCBA's Short Checklist

Picking a Tier 2 behavior goal in a school is a three-question checklist, a hard cap of two or three goals per student, and a first-choice reinforcement menu you run before you write any of it down. That is the whole job. Most of the bloat in a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) comes from a school Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) skipping one of those three steps and trying to make up for it by adding more goals. Nicky Schneider, a school BCBA in New Jersey, spent most of her talk on what to keep in and, more importantly, what to leave out. This page is the goal-selection lane of that talk.

What Tier 2 actually means in a behavior plan#

Tier 2 sits in the middle of the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework most schools use. Tier 1 is what every student in the building gets: classroom rules, behavior-specific praise, a posted schedule, basic regulation routines. Tier 3 is the small group of students who need an individualized BIP, a one-to-one paraprofessional, or a self-contained setting. Tier 2 is the middle layer. A small group of students, often six to fifteen percent of a school, who need a little more than Tier 1 but who do not need a full Tier 3 wrap.

For a school BCBA, a Tier 2 goal is one specific, function-based skill the student is missing that, if you taught it, would let them stay in their general education setting most of the day. Things like raising a hand instead of calling out. Asking for a break instead of leaving the room. Joining a peer group at recess instead of standing alone. The test is short. Can you write it as one observable behavior, can a classroom teacher run it with light coaching, and would the student be able to stay in Tier 1 most of the day if they had this skill? If yes to all three, it is a Tier 2 goal.

The short checklist for picking a Tier 2 goal#

Run this three-question filter before you write anything in the BIP draft.

1. Is the behavior interfering with this student's access to the general education curriculum, or just inconvenient for the adult? Inconvenient is not a goal. Access is.
2. Can the behavior be taught with a small-group or check-in routine the classroom teacher can run, or does it need a clinician in the room? Small-group is Tier 2. Clinician-required is Tier 3.
3. Is the function clear enough that you can write the replacement behavior in one sentence? If you cannot, you do not have a goal yet. You have a hunch.

If a candidate goal fails any of those three, it gets sent back. Either to Tier 1, where the whole class needs the routine, or to Tier 3, where the student needs more than a check-in. Most of the goals that pile up in a Tier 2 plan and never move the data are goals that should have lived in one of the other two tiers from day one.

Using a first-choice reinforcement menu to spot the real driver#

The single tool Nicky leaned on hardest for goal selection was the first-choice reinforcement menu. It is a short, structured preference assessment that asks the student to rank categories of reinforcement, not specific items. Adult approval. Peer approval. Competitive approval. Independent. Consumable.

"It tells me about what kind of reinforcement they're looking for and not just attention or tangible. It's telling me about the things that mean something in a larger classroom." Nicky Schneider, in the talk

That last part is what makes it a goal-selection tool, not just a reinforcement tool. If a student ranks peer approval at the top, your Tier 2 goal probably needs to live inside a peer routine. A lunch bunch. A small reading group. A two-person job in the classroom. If they rank independent at the top, your goal needs a quiet self-monitoring routine the student runs alone. Same student, different ranking, different goal. The menu is what keeps you from writing the same Tier 2 goal you wrote for the last kid.

Nicky also flagged a specific signal to watch for. If a student picks consumable at the top of the menu, that is rarely a reinforcement finding. That is usually a hunger finding.

"If they come up with consumable, I often go down the route of asking more questions about their meal time in school, their snack time. Do they have enough? Is enough nourishment, stuff like that. I won't build in edible rewards in school." Nicky Schneider, in the talk

Tier 2 goals are not the place to solve hunger. Hunger goes to the nurse, the social worker, or the family. Then you rerun the menu.

Goals that look Tier 2 but are really Tier 1 or Tier 3#

A lot of Tier 2 plans get bloated because Tier 1 routines and Tier 3 needs sneak into the goal list. A few patterns to flag and pull out.

"Student will follow directions" is Tier 1. Every kid in the building gets that lesson. If only this one student is missing it, the question is why, and the answer is almost never solved by writing it as their personal goal.

"Student will not engage in unsafe behavior" is Tier 3. Safety is a hard boundary, not a learning goal. It belongs in the Crisis section of the plan, not the goal list.

"Student will be respectful" is not a goal at all. It is not observable. Rewrite it as the specific behavior you actually want to see, or cut it.

"Student will use coping skills when frustrated" is usually Tier 3, because it needs a clinician to teach the skill before a classroom teacher can prompt it. If you write it at Tier 2, the teacher is being asked to prompt a skill the student does not have yet. That is a setup for the data to look flat for weeks.

The cleanup move is simple. Take your draft Tier 2 goal list. Read each one. If it belongs to the whole class, push it back to Tier 1 and ask the team to build the routine. If it needs a clinician in the room, push it up to Tier 3 and ask for the wrap. What is left in the middle is the real Tier 2 list.

How many Tier 2 goals one student can carry#

Two is the working number. Three is the ceiling. Four is a sign the plan is broken.

The reasoning is operational, not philosophical. A classroom teacher running a Tier 2 group has, on average, between thirty seconds and two minutes per student per check-in. That is enough time to take data on one or two specific behaviors. It is not enough time to take data on four. If you write four goals, the teacher silently picks the two that are easiest to score, and the other two get marked "no opportunity" for six weeks until the next review.

The data system has to match the time the teacher actually has. So does the goal count. Two well-chosen Tier 2 goals that get run every day will outperform four well-written Tier 2 goals that get run twice a week. Pick two. Let the third one wait for the next plan review. If a student truly needs four active goals at once, that student is not Tier 2 anymore. They are Tier 3, and the plan needs to be rewritten at that level.

What to do when the team wants to add a fourth#

This is the meeting moment where most Tier 2 plans go sideways. Somebody, often a teacher who is tired and asking for help, names a fourth behavior they want addressed. The instinct is to say yes and add it. Do not.

Try this script instead. "I hear that this behavior is also a concern. Before we add it, can we look at the data on the two goals already in the plan, and decide if one of them is ready to retire? Tier 2 holds two active goals at a time for this student. If the fourth behavior is more pressing than one of the current two, we swap. If it is not, we keep what is working and revisit at the next review."

That move does three things at once. It honors the teacher's concern, which is the real reason the fourth goal got proposed. It protects the data system from collapsing under its own weight. And it teaches the team, over time, that Tier 2 is a finite resource, not a wish list. If the fourth behavior really is at the safety or hygiene level Nicky talked about elsewhere in the talk, that is not a goal to add. That is a sign the student needs a Tier 3 review, and the right move is to refer up, not pile on.

Frequently asked questions#

How many Tier 2 behavior goals should a student have? Two is the working number. Three is the ceiling. If you find yourself drafting a fourth, that is a signal to retire one of the current goals or refer the student up to Tier 3, not to expand the plan.

How do I tell a Tier 2 goal from a Tier 3 goal? A Tier 2 goal can be run by the classroom teacher with light coaching, fits inside a small-group or check-in routine, and would let the student stay in Tier 1 most of the day once mastered. A Tier 3 goal needs a clinician to teach the skill, often needs a one-to-one paraprofessional, and is paired with a full BIP rather than a check-in.

Can a Tier 2 goal be social only? Yes. If the first-choice reinforcement menu puts peer approval at the top and the access problem is social participation (lunch, recess, group work), a peer-routed goal like "Student will join a peer group activity at recess on four of five days" is a legitimate Tier 2 goal. It still has to pass the access test from the checklist above.

What if the data on a Tier 2 goal is flat for weeks? Two-week rule. If the data has not moved in two weeks, do not change the criterion or add a prompt. Look at the goal itself. Either the function was wrong, the reinforcement menu was stale, or the goal belongs at Tier 3. Pick one of those three causes, fix it, and rerun. Adding a fourth goal on top of a flat goal does not fix the flat goal.

Watch the full talk and tighten your next Tier 2 plan#

Nicky's full CEU goes well past goal selection into boundaries, the escalation cycle, and which hills are worth dying on as a school BCBA. It is free and BACB-eligible.

Watch the full CEU on openceu.com

Then pick one student on your Tier 2 caseload, run the first-choice reinforcement menu, and cut the plan to two goals before the next review.