Our What, Why, & How.
We specialize in supporting students who display Persistently Challenging Behaviors (PCB). We are a growing organization built on the belief that meaningful work often involves addressing complex challenges with skill, compassion, and unwavering commitment.
The What.
Intentional.
Districts identify six to ten students requiring the most intensive and intentionally curated behavioral supports, and Polaris provides each student with a highly trained one-to-one Tier 3 paraprofessional for daily school-based services.
Comprehensive.
Every paraprofessional is supported by an on-location BCBA/Behavioral Consultant who conducts an FBA, develops an individualized BIP, trains the paraprofessional in intervention implementation and data collection, collaborates with key student stakeholders, and provides weekly supervision, feedback, and coaching.
Committed.
Our approach is grounded in proactive, skill-building practices: we design environments and interactions that decrease the likelihood of problem behavior while increasing the likelihood that replacement behaviors, communication, regulation, and alternative skills will occur.
The Why
Achievement and Attendance Gaps for Students With Intensive Support Needs
A 2023 meta-analysis found large reading, spelling, and math achievement gaps between students with ASD-ID and students with ASD without ID. Attendance data also show that students with emotional disturbance are substantially more likely to be chronically absent. Together, these gaps show why intensive, individualized intervention matters.
The Cost of Sending Students Out of District
Out-of-district placement can become a major financial strain for public schools. NCES reported average total public school spending of $18,614 per pupil in 2020–21, while out-of-district special education tuition is often more than $70,000 per student, before considering local variation, transportation, or more intensive residential needs. Polaris ABA’s model is designed to strengthen in-district capacity before support needs escalate beyond the school setting
Educator Concern Around Student Behavior
RAND’s 2024 survey found that managing student behavior was the most-selected top-three stressor for U.S. public K–12 teachers, at 45%, ahead of salary, administrative work, workload, lost instructional time, and student mental health. This supports Polaris ABA’s core purpose: reducing educator stress by placing specialized behavioral expertise, daily implementation support, and data-driven intervention around the students and classrooms that need it most
The How.
Polaris ABA provides unparalleled training and support through the Competing Responses Framework. In ABA, a competing response is an appropriate behavior that is incompatible with, or functionally competes with, the problem behavior. For students displaying PCB, this means we do not wait for crisis; we identify triggers, arrange proactive supports, teach replacement behaviors, prompt early, reinforce success, and coach adults to respond consistently. The goal is to make the desired skill more available, efficient, and reinforced than the challenging behavior.