School violence has gained attention in recent years with the rise of aggressive behavior in schools across the United States. With increased understanding of this problem, school district administrators might implement prevention strategies or assess current school violence policies and programs. Using the conceptual framework of general strain theory, a case study was conducted in an urban school district in the northeastern United States that was experiencing increased student violence. The purpose of this case study was to explore teachers' perceptions of school violence to increase the understanding of the problem at the study site. All certified teachers in the study district were invited to participate. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 12 teachers in 9 elementary schools. After compiling, disassembling, reassembling, and coding the data, various themes emerged. The findings from the interviews revealed a need for district-wide consistency to address school violence, professional development to train staff on violence related issues and mandates, and a program to combat as well as prevent the existence of violence in the school climate. A recommendation is that the school district adopts the School Wide Positive Behavior Intervention Supports to provide a framework of consistent management of student behavior and professional development practices within a district-wide violence prevention program. The study contributes to positive social change by increasing the understanding of school violence at the study site and providing the recommended program designed to improve school climate, student learning, and social behavior through a tier leveled system designed to reach all levels of school violence.

This study evaluated the predictive and concurrent validity of the Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI). Structural equation modeling was applied to test the associations between the TFI and student outcomes. First, a total of 1,691 schools with TFI Tier 1 in 2016-17 and school-wide discipline outcomes in 2015-16 and 2016-17 were targeted, finding a negative association between TFI Tier 1 and differences between African American and non-African American students in major office discipline referrals (ODR) per 100 students per day in elementary schools. A sensitivity test with schools with TFI Tier 1, 2, and 3 was conducted, showing a negative association between TFI Tier 1 and the square root of major ODR rates in elementary schools. Second, TFI Tier 1 was positively related to the proportions of students meeting or exceeding state-wide standards in reading from 1,361 schools with TFI Tier 1 and academic outcomes in 2014-15 and 2015-16. Also, the association between TFI Tier 1 and academic outcomes was found to be stronger when schools implemented SWPBIS for 6 or more years. A sensitivity test with schools with TFI Tier 1, 2, and 3 indicated positive associations between TFI Tier 1 and the proportions of students meeting or exceeding state-wide standards in both subjects. Third, TFI Tier2 was positively associated with the logit of proportions of students with CICO daily points from 570 schools with TFI Tier 2 in 2016-17 and CICO outcomes in 2015-16 and 2016-17. Fourth, correlations between the Evaluation subscale of TFI Tier 1 or 2 and relevant measures in 2016-17 were tested from 2,379 schools. TFI Tier 1 Evaluation was positively correlated with counts of TFI administrations, number of fidelity measures, and counts of viewing SWIS Reports. These correlations were significant except for ODRs by staff. Also, TFI Tier 2 Evaluation was significantly positively correlated with years of SWPBIS implementation, years of CICO-SWIS implementation, and counts of viewing CICO Reports except student period, and negatively with counts of viewing student single period. These findings were discussed by comparing them with previous research findings, suggesting implications for future research and practice, and addressing research limitations.

This study examined factors related to the implementation of a School Wide Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support (SWPBIS) program at a large middle school in the United States. Parent Teacher Student Association volunteers at the school reported that teacher fidelity to implementation of SWPBIS activities was inconsistent, threatening the SWPBIS program's effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to identify barriers that hindered teachers' fidelity in implementing SWPBIS. Teacher resistance to change, change leadership framework, and the model for effective professional development were used in this case study to explore the perceptions of 16 participants. The research questions focused on teachers', SWPBIS coaches', and administrators' perceptions and experiences with barriers to implementing SWPBIS in the third year of implementation (2013-2014). Emergent themes derived from coding participant interviews revealed 7 major barriers to teacher implementation fidelity including confusion about priorities, peer and student influences, philosophical differences, and weaknesses in leadership and professional development. The interview data were triangulated with data from archived documents to ensure the credibility of the study. A project recommendation for 6 professional development modules was made to address study findings. Positive social change implications include the efficacy of using the project study as an example for other schools to improve teacher effectiveness by responding to teacher weaknesses and facilitating improved student outcomes.

The School-wide Evaluation Tool (SET) is a commonly used measure of the implementation fidelity of school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) programs. The current study examines the content and concurrent validity of the SET to establish whether an alternative approach to weighting and scoring the SET might provide a more accurate assessment of SWPBIS implementation fidelity. Twenty published experts in the field of SWPBIS completed online surveys to obtain ratings of the relative importance of each item on the SET to sustainable SWPBIS implementation. Using the experts' mean ratings, four novel SET scoring approaches were developed: unweighted, reweighted using mean ratings, unweighted dropping lowest quartile items, and reweighted dropping lowest quartile items. SET 2.1 data from 1,018 schools were used to compare the four novel and two established SET scoring methods and examine their concurrent validity with the Team Implementation Checklist 3.1 (TIC; across a subsample of 492 schools). Correlational data indicated that the two novel SET scoring methods with dropped items were both significantly stronger predictors of TIC scores than the established SET scoring methods. Continuous SET scoring methods have greater concurrent validity with the TIC overall score and greater sensitivity than the dichotomous SET 80/80 Criterion. Based on the equivalent concurrent validity of the unweighted SET with dropped items and the reweighted SET with dropped items compared to the TIC, this study recommends that the unweighted SET with dropped items be used by schools and researchers to obtain a more cohesive and prioritized set of SWPBIS elements than the existing or other SET scoring methods developed in this study. / School Psychology

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.