The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a school-wide attendance and truancy intervention and universal procedures (ATI-UP) on student attendance. Student attendance was measured through average daily attendance and the percentage of students who would be considered chronically absent, i.e., missing 10% or more of school. The sample included 27 elementary schools in Oregon implementing school-wide positive behavior intervention and supports (SWPBIS) with varying levels of fidelity. Results indicate that schools can have a moderate effect on increasing average daily attendance (ADA) and a small effect on decreasing chronic absenteeism, although these results were not statistically significant. SWPBIS implementation did not act as a statistically significant moderator on the ATI-UP effects, although the treatment effect on ADA decreased with higher SWPBIS implementation.

Research has shown that African American males are performing poorly in American public schools and are disciplined at a higher rate than other ethnic and gender groups. Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS) has a long history of success with individual students and more recently in school-wide settings. School-wide PBIS offers schools the ability to tailor their rules, rewards, and consequences to the specific needs and culture of a school. This descriptive and quantitative study sought to determine if implementation with fidelity of SWPBIS positively correlated to reduced disciplinary measures. The object of this study was to determine in what ways disciplinary rates for African American males differ in American public schools that identify as using SWPBIS with fidelity as compared to American public schools that do not implement SWPBIS with fidelity. Disciplinary rates examined included ISS, OSS single incident, and OSS multiple incidents. Descriptive findings indicated that schools that implement SWPBIS show a lower rate of ISS and OSS incidents for African American males. The quantitative findings did not yield a statistically significance between schools with fidelity of implementation of SWPBIS and schools without fidelity of implementation of SWPBIS.