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			Success Story "Without question, the Positive Schools program has changed our lives..."


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About Positive Schools

Program Components
Results
Adopting the Model
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Positive Schools > Results

After implementing Positive Schools

behavior support techniques, schools districts across the country have reported a significant number of positive results including a reduction in office referrals and suspensions, fewer bus incidents, increased student learning, and greater teacher satisfaction.

A Reduction in Office Referrals and Suspensions
When students are removed from class because of disruptive behavior, they lose the opportunity to learn and tend to fall behind their peers. This often creates frustration and further exacerbates existing behavior issues. Additionally, many suspended students are left unsupervised at home or in the community.

Positive Schools

has proven highly effective at reducing behaviors leading to office referrals, detentions, and suspensions. Teachers receive both group and one-on-one instruction in employing effective behavior support strategies. This keeps students in class, leading to improvement in academic performance. FIGURE 1 shows the drop in the number of suspensions at one large urban school that implemented the Positive Schools

program. Suspensions decreased by 94 percent within one year of program implementation.

Graph - Changes in Suspension

Fewer Bus Incidents
Inappropriate student behavior on the bus often creates dangerous situations. Unfortunately, few bus drivers have been trained in effective behavior management techniques, and bus incidents remain a dangerous problem for schools.

Positive Schools

is tailored to help schools target their most pressing discipline problems. One school experienced an 85 percent decrease in bus-related suspensions after school staff implemented the Positive Schools

program and specifically targeted bus behavior. This meant more students attending school who would otherwise have stayed home with no transportation to school.

Decreases in Other Problem Behaviors
Figure 2 shows dramatic decreases in other problem behaviors: an 80 percent decrease in office referrals for fighting; 79 percent decrease in referrals for assaults to staff members; and 56 decrease in referrals for disruptive behaviors.

Graph - Behavior Outcomes - Decrease in Problem Behaviors Over 3 Years

Graph - Behavior Outcomes - Decrease in Problem Behaviors Over 3 Years

Increased Learning
Students cannot learn in disruptive school settings. Many teachers report spending a significant amount of instruction time attending to discipline problems. Under these conditions, the academic performance of all students suffers.

Positive Schools

dramatically impacts student behavior in the classroom. One school district experienced an increase in academic engagement of 31 percent and a decrease in disruptive behavior of 41 percent across 12 classrooms within six months of program implementation. Half of these classrooms were inclusion classrooms, with up to 50 percent of students with special needs. Positive
Schools

was equally effective in both inclusion and general education classrooms.

Greater Teacher Satisfaction
Research conducted by the U.S. Department of Education indicates that most teachers do not feel they have the necessary training to implement new teaching methods. Other research indicates that few teachers or administrators receive training in effective behavior management practices. The Positive Schools program provides both, and teacher response has been extremely positive.

In one large urban school, support for the program was so strong that teachers requested to come in to complete the training on a day when school was cancelled because of a snowstorm. "In my 30 years as an educator and principal, I had never had a teacher request to come in on a day off or a snow day," commented one school principal. Remarkably, this took place at a school where teacher attrition had been a major problem.

After implementation of the Positive Schools program, an independent study found that teacher satisfaction at this school rose by 57 percent. The number of teachers who reported that staff worked together to ensure the success of the school rose by 70 percent, and the number reporting that the roles, responsibilities, and school standards.


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