School-Based Intervention Case Study

School-Based Intervention

Children spend a majority of their time in school and within environments that are most often not supportive of a child’s learning. This can affect a child’s social, emotional, and behavioral development, and can affect their successful pathways toward normal development. School-based interventions are an important piece toward ensuring students grow, and develop improved outcomes relative to the scope of the problem.

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The purpose of this paper is to review and examine the issue of disruptive behaviors at Martin Luther King Elementary School (MLK). I plan to explain how this school uses strategic interventions and data programs to implement change efforts related to school reform and positive behavioral support. Through the theoretical lens of B. F. Skinner, and his theory of operant conditioning, I will address the relationship of positive and negative reinforcements and learning, and bring insight to the potential reduction of suspensions and restorative practices, which could deem beneficial to the school environment.

Identifying Problem Areas

Since the beginning of the school year, all teachers have noticed that the students behavior is a lot worst this year in comparison to past years. MLK has had to come up with some strategies to reduce, eliminate, and identify problem area; therefore, all staff created posters to put up in class on classroom expectation. These rules are to keep the student on track and refrain from getting into trouble. Teachers have to be able to identify the purpose of why it is important to display changes needed in the classroom. This will help guide the students to be engaged, participate, and become accepting of what is expected of them to be successful in the classroom. The following list describes some of the potential issues within the school:

● Students are disruptive

● Students are unmotivated

● Physical contact with other student

● Disregard for school expectations

● Students who have learn disabilities

Swiss Data System

The Swiss-data system collects, summarizes, and helps educators make effective decisions on behavioral issues by using appropriate guidelines and collection of behavioral data through a web-based system. This system provides educational leaders various types of information, which is aligned with the Professional Behavioral Integrated System (PBIS).

Teachers take this report and show to the parent and let them know when their child is acting out at what time, when, and reason this monitoring and data is needed to be successful to change the behavior and get them back on track (www.pbisapps.org). This resource answers questions for the school and gives on-going support, and influence change in the student behaviors. The system provides reports for staff which will monitor student progress:

● Review target intervention, academics, social, and mental health

● Measures goals

● Plans/History/Data

● Details

● Number of measures

● Evaluations/Assessments

In MLK, the behavior specialist has the teacher write referral so that the form can be put into the swiss data system. This system was built to collect data on students behavior and help make decision on how to approach the issue. This reflects on behavior that may be considered either major or minor, and what exact time the behavior occurs to analyze the behaviors and trends at school-wide small group, and individual levels. The system collects the referral type, student, grade, date, time, location, problem behavior, perceived motivation, others involved, and action taken. Swiss breaks everything down and gives a summary report with collective reports and graphs.

Demographics

The tables below highlights performance in key education areas for current and prior academic years for third through 12th grade according to the Muskegon Heights district data report. Click the links in the tables for more details on education data, and visit MiDashboard for data on the state’s performance in other key areas.

Key education areas and content within are based on MI Dashboard education elements. Note that the years referenced as “current” and “prior” are different for each metric, depending on data availability and reporting schedules. You can place your cursor over the data element to see the year being referenced for each metric.

Student Outcomes	Prior	Current
Students Proficient in English Language Arts at the End of Third Grade	0.0%	4.9%
Student Academic Growth 3-8	28.5	35.0
Students Proficient in Math and ELA 3-8	0.3%	1.2%
Students Proficient on M-STEP 11th grade (in all subjects)	0.0%	0.0%
ACT Composite Score	N/A	N/A
SAT Total Score	761.2	740.0
ACT College Readiness Benchmarks	N/A	N/A
SAT College Readiness Benchmarks	0.0%	0.0%
4 year Graduation Rate	65.38%	72.00
Dropout Rate	15.38%	12.00

Culture of Learning	Prior	Current
Total Breakfast Participation as a Percentage of Total Lunch Participation	72.6%	77.6%
Free and Reduced Lunch Participation by Eligible Students	100.0%	100.0%
Economically Disadvantaged Students	88.5%	93.3%

Value for Money	Prior	Current
Districts with ongoing deficits for three consecutive years	0	0
General Fund Balance	$1,225,247.28	$1,112,265.94
Instructional Expenditures Per Pupil	$3,588.52	$4,219.03
Average Class Size K-3	13.3	15.8

Salary Data	Prior	Current
Superintendent
Maximum	N/A	N/A
Average	N/A	N/A
Minimum	N/A	N/A
Principals
Maximum	N/A	N/A
Average	N/A	N/A
Minimum	N/A	N/A
Teachers
Maximum	N/A	N/A
Average	N/A	N/A
Minimum	N/A	N/A

*Data retrieved from http://www.mischooldata.org (2000-2001 school years). When looking at the table it shows that student cannot learn because of the environment for which they live teacher are going to continue to struggle until students are conditioned and learn how to reinforce consequences for their actions.

Theorists

Upon studying theorist B.F. Skinner he used operant condition to show that the objective is to reinforce the condition. That students can learn when reinforce and understand what is being taught. This relate to teachers how we use incentives to change the behavior and reward them for a instant change in behavior versus getting a negative reaction. As a teacher there is a need to get them more engage and guide them to promote results for which the environment they have to face on a daily. Skinner states learning is not doing; it s changing what we do(Semana, Giraldyne, 2000).

There are five obstacles to learning

● People have a fear of failure

● Lack of direction

● Positive reinforcement

● Task not broken down into small enough steps

● Clarity in direction

Lessons need to be age-appropriate, the teacher needs to take it slow when teaching the students. Some students brains are not developing or maturing at the correct stage which effects how to process the information and the child struggles in the classroom. Which make them act out in class and causes disruption, non-compliance to doing the work, learning disability, or problem following higher authority. They have NO regard to school-wide expectations or anything to keep them safe and on track to move on to the next level of learning.

Conclusion

Teachers are finding new positive behavior management strategies to control the classroom. Students are starting to focus more on programs that address schools want to enhance academics and show support to the student learning abilities. Principals are having students and parents sign agreements to plan that will implement age appropriate guidelines to reinforce the behaviors and redirect the problem. School-based intervention are so important to prevent teachers from being stress and burnout (American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008).

This will bring success and growth to students and the negative behavior become less.