Promoting Positive Behaviour.

http://cecp.air.org/preventionstrategies/prevent.pdf What Administrators Can Do To Promote Positive Student Behavior dministrators know only too well that concern for student misbehavior is not new — although the behavior problems have become more prevalent, violent, and destructive during the past 20 years. In poll after poll, behavior problems, lack of discipline, student safety, and violence in the schools, make the top 10 list of concerns about public education. And these concerns are no longer directed only at middle and high schools. Increasingly, serious discipline problems are affecting elementary schools as well. As many elementary classroom teachers will tell you, they spend an inordinate amount of time and energy managing student misbehavior and conflict — time that could be spent on teaching and learning. A recent survey found that elementary students disrupt the classroom and talk back or disobey teachers more frequently than they did a decade ago (Langdon, 1997). Until recently, practitioners often waited until the behavior became serious enough to warrant referral to special education or other intensive services. Sadly, the teachers and parents of too many of these students see signs of potential difficulty long before the behavior escalates to the point of referral — in some cases, by the end of first grade (Wehby, Dodge, Valente, and others, 1993). Although many young children today participate in early childhood programs designed to prevent future learning problems (e.g., Head Start, Early Start, preschool), elementary school is a child’s first experience with formal schooling. While many children easily adjust to the rules and routines that define the code of conduct in public school classrooms, some students need more support in making this transition. Unfortunately, there has been little support for early intervention when a child shows signs of behavioral difficulties, and in some cases there have been significant barriers. For example, a clause in the 1997 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has inadvertently caused some administrators to refrain from discussing and addressing minor behavioral difficulties while others have begun automatically to refer students for the slightest infraction. Administrators are wise to be concerned. The number of referrals continues to increase and the need to prevent many of these troublesome behaviors has never been so great. Fortunately, prevention strategies do exist that enable school communities to redirect misbehavior and reduce the potential for misbehavior early on, before the need for formal discussion arises. This guide describes prevention practices that K-8 school administrators have found to be effective in accelerating school performance, increasing readiness for learning, and reducing problem behaviors. Creating a safe school environment requires, among other things, having in place many preventive measures for children’s behavioral and emotional problems. This guide describes prevention practices that K-8 school administrators have found to be effective in accelerating school performance, increasing readiness for learning, and reducing problem behaviors. While these practices cannot prevent all inappropriate behaviors from occurring — indeed, administrators could implement all of the strategies in this guide and still experience behavioral problems for which they need more intensive strategies — they can help you create a school environment that promotes positive behavior. The information in this guide derives from the work of researchers at six universities who spent the last six years implementing school-based prevention practices. Their focus was on students with — and at risk of developing — emotional and behavioral disorders. Examples of prevention strategies from each of these projects are included throughout this document. Contact information for each project is found at the end of the document. Research-based strategies varied across the districts represented in this guide, but one finding remained constant. First and foremost, administrators are key to making prevention work. Their role is twofold: providing an environment that fosters positive behavior and making available specialized support and services that can interrupt cycles of negative behavior. What Do We Know About Prevention? Effective prevention programs are based on the premise that early response to learning, behavioral, and emotional problems can lead to better outcomes for students. Prevention strategies are built into the school’s foundation as part of the regular school program. They are accessible to all students — not just those students who qualify for special programs such as special education or Title I. Two types of universal prevention approaches fit well at the elementary school level. These are: ••• Classroom and schoolwide structural strategies. Practitioners provide consistent environments in classrooms and throughout the entire school. These approaches are designed to benefit all students by building uniform structure and a positive climate that promotes and supports appropriate behavior. Structural SIDEBAR TEXT: ACTIVITIES FOR TIMELINE Prevention in the Classroom r Positive behavior management. r Social skills instruction. r Academic enrichment. Schoolwide Prevention r Unified discipline approach. r Shared expectations for socially competent behavior. r Academic enrichment. School-Family-Community Linkages r Parent partnerships. r Community services. approaches, both those found within individual classrooms and those that are implemented schoolwide, typically address prevention from a multidimensional perspective that includes behavioral management, social skills instruction, and academic enrichment. ••• School as a pathway to family and community agency partnerships. Although classroom and schoolwide structural strategies provide a stable and positive environment for most students, some students need additional support. Sound prevention strategies at this level establish linkages between the primary aspects of students’ lives: home and family, school and classroom, and community and social service agencies. Family, school, and community agency partnerships can provide temporary assistance that can preempt the need for more intensive interventions. Both types of prevention — working in tandem and on a consistent basis — are necessary. Comprehensive school-based prevention strategies at the elementary level are relatively new. However, in most cases administrators will have some prevention strategies already in place. They can use these structures as building blocks as they work to establish a more comprehensive approach. Prevention strategies can help administrators answer the following questions: ••• What can be done in the classroom? ••• What works schoolwide? ••• How can we support students through school-family partnerships? ••• How can we build community agency linkages? Following are examples of promising strategies in each of these areas. Prevention in the Classroom Administrators know that effective classroom practices — such as good classroom organization, engaging lessons with high rates of student response, positive climates, accommodations to match students’ ability levels, and mild consequences for misbehavior — usually will lead to appropriate behaviors for the majority of students. However, many of today’s students often require additional support. Prevention approaches in classrooms focus on what students need to be successful (Dodge & Bickert, 1996). They extend the practitioner’s reach in helping students before corrective measures are necessary (Henley, 1997). Prevention has two important advantages over corrective, after-the-fact discipline. First, it tends to be cost effective — it is much easier to prevent inappropriate behaviors than it is to correct them. Second, there are no negative consequences for children who behave appropriately. In most classroom and schoolwide prevention approaches, there is an emphasis on: ••• Behavior management systems that teach and reward appropriate behaviors. ••• Social skills instruction as an integral part of the curriculum. ••• Academic enrichment to ensure that students master key knowledge and skills.