Please be quiet now! Please be quiet! I just want to teach!’’ shouts Ms. Thomas. The middle school science teacher is standing at the front of her classroom with a sheet of new vocabulary words and trying to read them to her students. As she attempts to manage their behavior and teach her content, Ms. Thomas’s students are yelling across the classroom to one another, throwing paper airplanes, listening to music on cell phones, and play fighting in the corner of the room. Ms. Thomas continues to repeat her request for quiet at increasing volumes, and the student noise rises in tandem. Finally, Ms. Thomas throws up her hands and says, ‘‘That’s it! If you don’t want to learn then I’m not going to teach!’’ Later that day, Ms. Thomas approaches her assistant principal and says, ‘‘I can’t take another day like this. I think I need help.’’

Like Ms. Thomas, many classroom teachers are faced with challenging student behaviors that impact their ability to facilitate learning in productive, safe environments. At the same time, high-stakes testing, increased emphasis on evidence-based instruction, data-based decision making, and response-to-intervention models have put heavy demands on teacher time and resources (Sugai & Horner, 2009). In the presence of these demands, every second of instruction counts. Therefore, when challenging student behavior encroaches on instruction, teachers and students are placed in a frustrating situation.