Public school systems are required to provide a safe learning environment free of violence and disruption. For students who threaten the learning of themselves or others, schools frequently develop a disciplinary alternative education placement. Students with a history of behavior problems at school are at greatest risk for future behavior problems and academic failures. In response to evidence that removal discipline techniques had little efficacy, schools have focused on identifying alternative methods of maintaining order and safety. This study evaluated the outcomes of an elementary-level alternative discipline placement with unique intervention programming. The program includes interventions to increase the effectiveness of traditional alternative discipline placements. Activities focus on promoting social competence and developing social information-processing skills intended to increase the behavioral and academic success of student participants. The program excludes students from the general student population and consists of a behavior management system with gradually increasing behavior expectations, reinforcements and consequences, focused social skills lessons, counseling, and parenting classes. Participants were consistently lower performing academically than control group students both before and after the program. However, students who experienced fewer discipline removals after the program had higher report card grades. Overall, participants had a decrease in discipline removals after participating in the program but continued to have more lost instruction days due to discipline than control group students. The higher grade level students had less behavior improvement following the program than younger students. No relation was found between a student’s level of success in the program and their academic or behavioral performance changes. Future research needs include a comparison of students referred for persistent misbehavior and those referred for a single, serious incident and the need to assess the specific skills addressed in the program. / Department of Educational Psychology

The problem of this study concerns the effects of a parent group counseling procedure and an individual consultation procedure upon (1) the attitude of the parents, (2) the school-related behavior of the children, (3) the academic grades of the children, (4) the peer relations of the children, and (5) self-concept of the children. The results of this investigation indicated no significant differences in procedures for affecting behavior changes on the variables examined. Generally, parent group counseling appeared to generate more pervasive changes affecting multiple behaviors in their children than individual consultation with the parents.

M.Ed. (Psycho-educational programme development) / The wide spread concern, pertaining the alarming rate of adolescents leaving school before completing Grade12 is a South African problem. The experiences of those adolescents vary greatly. In line with the South Afncan School Act (84 of 1996) education is accessible and compulsory for all. Unfortunately that provision is targeted only for grade 1to grade 9, of which grade 9 is considered an exit point for General Education and Training. There is no clear cut intervention strategy in place in the educational system toassist adolescents leaving school before completing Grade 12 in order to cope with their situation It is for this reason that the researcher took the initiative of exploring the adolescents' experiences of leaving school before completing Grade 12. The researcher realises that adolescents form alarge percentage of our country's population. Therefore they should be retained inschools in order to be capacitated, so that they can develop and sustain economic structures of a country that has a future that depends on the expertise of the youth. Retaining adolescents in schools is a necessity. As a result, in this research, an attempt is made to alert the educational stakeholders to assist the adolescents who have left school before completing Grade 12 to cope with their situation. This research study is aimed at describing the adolescents' experiences of leaving school before completing grade twelve, to provide guidelines and to make recommendations for other educational stakeholders on how these adolescents can be assisted. The setting of the study is in the informal settlement of Ekurhuleni metropolis. Thestudy is conducted through the combination of individual interviews and participant observation. The research method that was followed was qualitative, explorative, descriptive, and contextual in order to investigate what the adolescents' experiences are. Sampling was done purposively because the respondents had to be adolescents who have left the secondary school before completing grade twelve. A pilot interview study was done. Thereafter phenomenological interviews were conducted with twenty of these adolescents. During the interviews, ethical measures were adhered to and steps to ensure trustworthiness were also followed. The data was analysed as per Tesch's method of data analysis. The services of an independent coder were also employed. The results were based on the phenomenological in-depth interviews on adolescents' own experiences of leaving secondary school before completing Grade 12. The recommendations from this study were made with specific reference to the education department. educators, parents and non-governmental organisations Guidelines were described according to themes and categories of experiences. objectives and strategies.

The purpose of this investigation was to develop a descriptive profile of both adjudicated and nonadjudicated adolescents educated in a juvenile center/school for delinquent and/or maladapted youth in order to (a) disclose the characteristics of the contemporary adolescent delinquent educated in a community based facility with both day and residential components, (b) discern any differences in demographic data, scholastic data, handicapping conditions, and delinquent behaviors among handicapped and nonhandicapped adolescents with delinquent or maladaptive behaviors, and (c) discover the prevalence by types of handicaps exhibited by this population since the implementation of Public Law 94-142. The subjects for the study were 102 adolescents educated in a juvenile center/school during September 1, 1981, through August 31, 1982.

Ph.D. (Education) / Education in the United Kingdom is divided into three stages which are: primary, secondary, further and higher education. Learners’ compulsory education lasts for 11 years. Legal schooling ages are starting from five years to 16 years. Within that period learners must obtain full-time education that is suitable to their age, ability, capacity and their special educational needs (SEN). If a learner does not attend a school, the local education authority (LEA) must be satisfied that other appropriate provision is available for them. Transferring age from primary to secondary school is at the age of 11 years. Most secondary schools in the United Kingdom are comprehensive; which means that they do not operate a selective entrance system. However, in some parts of the United Kingdom, grammar school systems operates which usually requires learners to pass an entrance examination based on their ability.

The topic of alternative schools is widely available in the literature; however, once a student has been labeled a "troublemaker" and has been placed in a District Alternative Education Program (DAEP), a Type II setting, there is limited information about the overall success of students upon their return to the mainstream. This study compared the success of students formerly placed in a modified disciplinary Type II setting, once they have returned to the mainstream, with their success prior to disciplinary placement. The purpose of the study was to examine if disciplinary measures that remove students from the mainstream environment negatively impact the variables that measure school success, despite legislative mandates such as No Child Left Behind, which advocates success for every student. The population for this study was 86 7th- through 11th-grade students assigned to a DAEP in Texas during the spring of 2003. A comparison of pre- and post-placement dependent variables measuring school success-attendance, passing core courses, behavioral achievement, standardized test score achievement, recidivism, and dropout rates-comprised this study. The independent variables-gender, ethnicity, grade level, socioeconomic status, and disciplinary offense-were used to compare and analyze each dependent variable. The dependent variables of attendance, passing core courses, and behavior demonstrated a decline in the measurement of school success across time. The only dependent variable that demonstrated improvement between the pre- and post-placement periods was achievement on standardized test scores. From the number of students who withdrew from the mainstream during the post-placement semesters, large recidivism and dropout rates were determined, which reflected the large percentage of students who were not successful in the district's mainstream. The comparisons of dependent variables by independent variables resulted in significance only in the analyses of attendance by grade level. This interaction was determined to be significant since p < .05. During both post-placement semesters, 11th-grade attendance increased by 20.2 points. Students in the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades maintained a slight increase in attendance between the pre-placement and first post-placement semester yet experienced an attendance decline in the second post-placement semester. This decline was seen in all three grade levels between the pre-placement and the second post-placement semesters. Attendance among tenth graders declined throughout all semesters of the study. The comparison of attendance by disciplinary offense resulted in a large effect size (eta2). The eta2 reported within 29.8% accuracy in variability when attendance was compared by disciplinary offense. Students placed for assault demonstrated a 27.7 point increase in attendance by the second post-placement semester. Despite the comparison of attendance by the grade level of students being the only significant result, and the comparison of attendance by disciplinary offense resulting in a large effect size, several specific conclusions were drawn from the analyses of the pre- and post-placement data measuring school success. All dependent variable measurements, with the exception of standardized test score achievement, resulted in an overall reduction of mean scores across time. This decline indicates that students do demonstrate a decline in school success following a removal from a mainstream setting.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandated that each child who qualifies for special education must have an individualized education program (IEP). Disciplinary issues and procedures under IDEA have been a source of concern among parents, schools, and advocates from disability groups. At issue are fundamental concerns about the protection of rights for students with disabilities, which must be balanced with the ability of school personnel to maintain safe school environments that benefits all students. This research examined the four survey questions related to discipline from a state-wide survey conducted by Education Service Center (ESC) Region 9 through a comparison of selected disability categories as they compare to the responses received from parents of students with the disability category of emotional/behavioral disorders (E/BD). In addition, the research examined the open-ended questions from surveys to determine the types of concerns reported by parents. Data accrued from a focus group of parents receiving special education services are also reported. Parents of students identified as having an E/BD rated their understanding of the school's discipline policy lower than parents of students from other eligibility categories. Almost 67% of parents of students identified as having E/BD stated that they knew that their child might be eligible for alternative discipline procedures. Parents of students identified as E/BD reported at a much higher percentage that they were aware that services must be continued if the child was removed from the instructional setting for discipline problems. In a focus group discussion, a majority of the parent's (67%) responded that they felt like they understood the school's discipline policies. When given a chance to respond through an open-ended questionnaire, parents addressed a variety of problems, such as children being continually suspended for behaviors related to their disability or the behavior intervention plan not being implemented.

This study investigated educators' perceptions of the importance of competencies for teachers of students with emotional and behavioral disorders and their own proficiency in the competencies. Participants included educators who had completed university-based coursework on emotional and behavioral disorders. Competencies from the Qualification and Preparation of Teachers of Exceptional Children study were correlated with CEC's content standards and knowledge skill sets for special education teachers of individuals with emotional and behavioral disorders. Participants ranked 88 competencies on importance and proficiency. Results revealed that educators' proficiency in competencies, their years of experience, and level of education contribute a significant percentage of variance in their ratings of the importance of competencies. Implications for further research are provided.

No description available.

Disruptive school behaviors in the black male child are of much concern to educators. While not developed specifically for use with black males, the Getting Away Clean program was designed to help children develop productive thinking skills, and to empower children to negotiate the social environment. Decision-making skills are strengthened, and children learn to counteract negative peer pressure and to relate positively to others. Selected fifth and sixth grade black male students from two elementary schools in a metropolitan Virginia school system were identified for the study. Eight students who were identified as those who had exhibited disruptive behaviors in the school setting, or those who needed skills to counteract negative peer pressure,were assigned to the treatment group. A group of eight students from the elementary schools was identified for the control group. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL, Edelbrock and Achenbach, 1983) was used to obtain data from parents, and the Teacher's Report Form (TRF, Edelbrock and Achenbach, 1983) was used to obtain data from teachers. In order to obtain pre-test data, teachers of the treatment and control group subjects for the 1987-88 school year completed the TRF. At the end of the treatment post-test data were obtained by requesting that teachers of the 1988-89 school year complete the TRF for treatment and control group subjects. The CBCL was also completed by parents of subjects in the treatment group. The statistical analyses used to determine differences between the two measures were the Rank Tranform Analysis of Covariance, Mann-Whitney Wilcoxon nonparametric tests and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests. Results indicated positive, but nonstatistically significant, differences between the pre and post measures. In addition, four subscales (Anxious, Social Withdrawal, Inattentive, and Aggressive) were statistically analyzed with the Multivariate Tests of Significance. Positive, but nonstatistically significant, differences between the treatment and control groups on either of the subscales on the pre and post measures will all subjects were found. Parent responses were interpreted in case summaries. While a statistically significant difference was not found between the pre and post measures, positive effects are noted and the Getting Away Clean program can be considered an alternative strategy for reducing disruptive school behaviors. / Ed. D.