GRADED: Check In, Check Out

What if the behavior approach everyone swears by is actually making some kids worse?

Check-In/Check-Out (CICO) is one of the most common Tier 2 interventions in school counseling, but most trainings leave out the detail that decides whether it works or fails. 

In this episode, I share the research, the hidden limitation no one’s talking about, and the story of a student who proved that “research-based” doesn’t always mean “right for every kid.”

This episode is highly researched:

Fairbanks, S., Sugai, G., Guardino, D., & Lathrop, M. (2007). Response to intervention: Examining classroom behavior support in second grade. Exceptional Children, 73(3), 288–310.

Filter, K. J., McKenna, M. K., Benedict, E. A., Horner, R. H., Todd, A. W., & Watson, J. (2007). Check in/check out: A post-hoc evaluation of an efficient, secondary-level targeted intervention for reducing problem behaviors in schools. Education and Treatment of Children, 30(1), 69–84.

Hawken, L. S., Bundock, K., Barrett, C. A., Eber, L., Breen, K., & Phillips, D. (2015). Large-scale implementation of check-in check-out: A descriptive study. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 30(4), 304–319. 

Hawken, L. S., MacLeod, K. S., & Rawlings, L. (2007). Effects of the Behavior Education Program (BEP) on office discipline referrals of elementary school students. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 9(2), 94–101. 

Klingbeil, D. A., Dart, E. H., & Schramm, S. A. (2019). A systematic review of function‐based modifications to check‐in/check‐out. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 21(1), 3–18. 

Maggin, D. M., Zurheide, J., Pickett, K. C., & Baillie, S. (2015). A systematic evidence review of the check‐in/check‐out program for reducing student challenging behaviors. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 17(4), 197–208. 

Sottilare, A. L., & Blair, K.-S. C. (2023). Implementation of check-in/check-out to improve classroom behavior of at-risk elementary school students. Behavioral Sciences, 13(3), 257. 

Note: "Jake" and "Carrie" are fictional versions of students based on compilations of real stories. 

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Tired of feeling overworked, underestimated, and buried under responsibilities no one trained you for?

The School for School Counselors Podcast is for real-world counselors who want clarity, confidence, and tools that actually work in real schools... not packaged curriculums or toxic positivity.

You’ll get honest conversations, practical strategies, and a real-world alternative to the one-size-fits-all approach you’ve probably been told to follow.

If the ASCA-aligned model doesn’t fit your campus, it's not your fault.
This podcast is where you’ll finally hear why, and what to do instead.

You don’t need more PD. You need someone who actually gets it.

This work is part of the School for School Counselors body of work developed by Steph Johnson, LPC, which centers role authority over role drift, consultative practice over fix-it culture, adult-designed systems and environments as primary drivers of student behavior, clinical judgment over compliance, and school counselor identity as leadership within complex systems.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I have to tell you about Jake, a fourth grader with
this very messy, spiky lookinghaircut that never seemed to
move.
He would shuffle into schoolabout five or ten minutes late
because inevitably he'd gottensidetracked on the way to school
or on his way down the hallway.
But he had a smile that wouldlight up the cafeteria, the

(00:32):
classroom or the office whereJake was always felt too small
when he was in it, because hehad this energy that just filled
every single corner.
He had the kind of personalitythat made teachers smile until
he saw a classmate's newsneakers or their new backpack
and just had to touch them.

(00:52):
Or he heard a fire truck andshouted my dad's a firefighter.
In the middle of a spellingtest.
His brain and his body werejust always three steps ahead of
his self-control.
Have you ever had a studentlike Jake?
I did what any by-the-bookschool counselor would do I put

(01:14):
him on check-in, check-out, seco.
I followed every step exactly,built the morning relationship.
I had a cool folder with apoint sheet inside.
We collected perfect data and Ireally thought that I was the
poster child for evidence-basedpractice.
Every morning Jake would bounceout to greet me in the hallway

(01:37):
with that spiky hair and wewould set goals for the day, and
I sent him off thinking that wewere building something amazing
and meaningful.
But after we'd done this for afew weeks, I pulled the data.
But after we'd done this for afew weeks, I pulled the data.
I started looking at the datatrends and I froze.
I had the sickest feeling in mystomach.

(02:02):
I can still remember it,because I started to realize
that I had been completely wrong.
Jake had more behavioralincidents on the days that we
checked in than the days that wedidn't, and his best days had
been the mornings when a crisiskept me from seeing him at all.

(02:23):
And I started to wonder what ifthe most celebrated and
recommended tier two behaviorintervention in schools was
actually making some kids worse.
Hey, school counselor, welcomeback In this episode of our
graded series.
We're digging into one of themost widely recommended tier two

(02:46):
behavior interventions inschools.
Check in, check out.
It's supposed to buildconnection, improve behavior and
give us usable data.
But does it actually help orcan it backfire for some
students and make the problemworse?
I'll share what research reallysays, the critical detail most
trainings leave out, and how todecide when Seco is the right

(03:09):
move and when it's not.
So if you're ready for somestraight talk, my friend, some
clarity on your work and alittle bit of rebellion, you're
going to be in the right place.
I'm Steph Johnson, and this isthe School for School Counselors
podcast.
My confusing data sent me onsome late night research binges

(03:31):
and you can imagine me sittingup at 11 o'clock with my laptop
reading every check-in check-outstudy I could find and trying
to understand how I could followall the steps perfectly and it
still end up so wrong.
Here's what finally stood out.
There were plenty of positivesabout this approach.

(03:54):
Multiple studies by researcherslike Hawken and colleagues show
that check-in checkout can cutoffice referrals, improve
behavior and boost engagement.
Teachers generally love it andin that massive study of over
441 schools, over 70% hitfidelity benchmarks, supporting

(04:18):
about 10% of their students, and80% of those students met their
daily point goals.
But there is a huge asteriskhere because even in that
success story, 25 to 40 percentof students still needed more

(04:38):
support and in one RTI study byFairbanks with second graders,
only about half improved oncheck-in checkout.
The rest needed somethingentirely different.
The rest needed somethingentirely different.

(05:00):
When you look at the research,you find a pattern that's buried
in the systematic reviews thatnobody ever talks about.
Check-in check-out works bestfor students whose misbehavior
is driven by adult attention.
And when you think about it, itmakes sense, because the design
of check-in check-out isexactly that Daily check-ins,
feedback and relationships areall at the core of the approach.

(05:22):
So for attention seekers, thisis like magic, but for other
situations, like students tryingto escape maybe the presence of
skill deficits or sensory needslike Jake's, the impact of SECO
drops significantly.
One 2015 review by Magan evencalled the evidence.

(05:44):
Mixed.
Single case studies lookedgreat, but group studies showed
no significant effects and theresearchers themselves
acknowledged that students withmore severe or functionally
different problems often needadditional support.
When I learned all that, jake'spuzzling data wasn't surprising

(06:08):
at all, because beingresearch-based isn't the same as
being student-matched.
When we look at the research,there is one truth that is
unavoidable the why behind thebehavior matters more than the
what.
On my campus, jake wasn'tacting out to get attention and

(06:34):
the signs of ADHD were prettycompelling His blurts about
pizza fractions and hisfidgeting and his I just have to
touch everything moments.
Those were executive functionstruggles.
They were not a bid forconnection.
Jake's brain was like a browserwith 47 tabs open and our

(06:56):
check-ins were just adding onemore tab to his already
overwhelmed system.
Check-in checkout doesn't teachexecutive skills.
It measures and it rewardsbehavior, but if the skill isn't
there yet, you're just trackingthe struggle.
We cannot behavior manage ourway out of a brain-based

(07:17):
difference.
So when I finally understoodwhat Jake actually needed,
things started to change.
Instead of giving morningcheck-ins that added to his
cognitive load, we created abreak card for him to use, and
instead of behavior points thatfocused on what he couldn't do,

(07:38):
we practiced appropriate ways tofidget.
We taught him the pause andbreathe strategy and within two
weeks his blurts droppedsignificantly because we were
finally addressing what hisbrain actually needed.
So here's the approach that Iuse now, and I think it's one

(07:58):
that would have saved Jake andmyself months of frustration, if
I'm being honest.
But we live and learn right.
We live and learn and we'realways seeking to get better.
First, identify the function.
Use quick ABC data.
Do you remember learning thatin grad school?
Antecedent behavior consequencewhat happens before, during and

(08:22):
after the behavior?
What's the student getting oravoiding?
For Jake, the pattern was clearwhen we looked for it Impulsive
responses in stimulatingenvironments.
Those all pointed to executivefunction challenges, not
attention seeking.
Secondly, match the intervention.

(08:43):
If it's attention seekingbehavior, check-in check-out can
shine because the dailyconnection and feedback is
exactly what those students'nervous systems are craving.
But if they're escape motivated, if they have skill deficits or
sensory needs like Jake's,choose something else.

(09:04):
Don't just ask if theintervention works.
Ask if it works for thisstudent with this need in this
moment.
Third, parent with skillbuilding.
If check-in check-out is theright fit, use those check-ins
to teach actual skills, teachself-regulation, communication

(09:29):
transitions.
The relationship in this is thevehicle, but skill building
should be the destination.
And fourth, plan the fade, thedestination.
And fourth, plan the fade Fromday one.
Build towards self-monitoringso students can graduate out of

(09:50):
check-in checkout.
Research shows some students canmaintain gains when we
gradually reduce adult feedbackand we know that success is not
measured by staying on check-incheckout.
Success is not needing itanymore.
So identifying the function,matching the intervention to the

(10:11):
student and the concern,pairing it with skill building
and planning the fade areessentials in effectively
addressing student concerns.
And I will tell you, I knowthat sounds really
straightforward, but I also knowwhen you go to apply this in
the messy reality of what you doevery single day.

(10:33):
It feels complicated, doesn'tit?
That's where having a communityof colleagues makes all the
difference, and it's why Icreated the School for School
Counselors Mastermind, so we canwork through these types of
real-world challenges together.
But let me tell you what itlooks like when check-in
checkout actually works, because, to be fair, I've also seen it

(10:59):
work beautifully.
I've also seen it workbeautifully, like with Carrie, a
fifth grader who lit up everytime an adult noticed her effort
For her, that daily feedbackloop turned her behavior around
in just a few weeks and byspringtime she didn't even need
check-ins anymore.
That's Seco working exactly asdesigned for exactly the right

(11:24):
function.
But I've also seen studentslike Jake cycle through Seco for
months and months and monthsand never really show any real
progress.
They get labeled asnon-responders or defiant, when
really they need a differenttool.
And if you really want to getinto the nitty gritty with this,

(11:44):
I'll tell you what keeps me upat night when I think about
check-in check-out and yes, I dostay up at night thinking about
this stuff.
Most of the research availableonly tracks behavior during
implementation.
There is little to nocomprehensive data on what
happens weeks or even monthsafter check-in checkout ends.

(12:07):
There's this huge gap wherewe're implementing interventions
but we don't really know orunderstand their long-term
impacts.
You know, my situation withJake taught me three truths that
I now carry into every behaviorplan.
One perfect implementation ofthe wrong intervention is still

(12:31):
the wrong intervention.
Secondly, compliance isn't thesame as capacity.
And third, every behavior makessense to the person that's
doing it.
Our job is to understand theirlogic, not impose our own.
This is how I now evaluateevery behavior support decision.

(12:54):
So I know that my suggestionsare being backed by research and
honors the critical importanceof function matching honors the
critical importance of functionmatching.
So before you put a student oncheck-in checkout, you need to
ask what's this behavioractually accomplishing for them?
If the answer is not gainingadult attention, you might be

(13:17):
about to give them the wrongtool, even if it's for the right
reasons.
How many students on yourcheck-in checkout list right now
might be like my, jake, wherethey're getting perfectly
implemented support but itdoesn't match what they actually
need?
So you know this series isgraded.

(13:38):
We're going to grade all of ourapproaches in school counseling
.
What grade do you think I'mgoing to give check-in check-out
?
Well, if you guessed a B youwould be right.
It's oddly specific.
Check-in check-out is effectivewhen it's matched to the right

(13:58):
function, when it's done withfidelity and when it's paired
with skill building.
But all too often very littleof that is happening and instead
it's used as a catch-all, whichsets a lot of kids up to fail
Like.
I hope I don't sound too harshhere, but even the systematic

(14:19):
reviews are acknowledging thelimitations of this approach,
and that mixed support findingthat I mentioned earlier and the
research that shows significantnon-response rates validates
what we are seeing on ourcampuses.
We cannot throw small groups orcheck-in check-out at every
student who needs Tier 2intervention.

(14:40):
Neither one is alwaysappropriate.
Jake taught me that goodintentions and perfect
implementation aren't enough ifwe're trying to solve the wrong
problem, and the differencebetween being intervention
focused and being studentfocused is not just asking if
your tool works, but if it worksfor this specific kid.

(15:06):
If you want to dig deeper intoresearch-driven behavior
supports that actually work, notonly for your campus culture
and student needs but for yourown personal bandwidth, you need
to come join us in the Schoolfor School Counselors Mastermind
.
We dig into real situationsevery single week through the

(15:26):
kind of nuanced thinking thathelps every student get what
they actually need.
If you're interested inchecking out the Mastermind, you
can find the link in the shownotes.
We would love to have you comejoin us.
All right, I'll be back soonwith another episode of the
School for School Counselorspodcast.
In the meantime, just rememberevery student deserves the right

(15:51):
tool, not just the popular ones.
And in case you're wondering,jake is doing great now.
I saw him just the other dayand he still has that spiky
little haircut.
But now he's got the tools thatwork with his brain and not
against it.
My friends, he is thriving andwith the right interventions,

(16:12):
your students can do the same.
Take care.