Lee Clark, PhD., H. Dale Nute, PhD., Evelyn Zellerer, PhD.
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Florida State University
Tallahassee, Florida 32306-1127
The Comprehensive Safe School Project is a process
that combines a systemic cultural change model with a targeted student
behavioral intervention model. It
was used in 42 schools in Florida, United States of America and achieved a
highly significant reduction in violent incidents.
Reductions in reported violence ranged between 41-50% in 21 elementary
schools, 45-65% in 9 middle schools and 45-65% in the 2 high schools.
Referrals for out-of-class disciplinary actions showed similar dramatic
reductions ranging between 55-70% in the elementary schools, 44-84% in the
middle schools and 44-84% in the 2 high schools.
Anecdotal data from these schools are also presented that illustrate
improvement in teacher attitudes, student academic performance and school
climate.
The first prong of the process, the systemic cultural
change model, is based on identifying the complex cultural patterns unique to a
school. These patterns define the
expectations of all members of the school community -- the teachers,
administration, students and parents -- and the resources available for change.
The entire community then develops a discipline plan based on these
expectations. The process centers
on the teacher as the individual responsible for managing both the academic and
behavioral accomplishments of the student.
As the individual responsible for making the daily decisions involving
discipline, the teacher is also involved in designing the strategies and
tailoring the interventions to the culture of the school and the needs of the
student.
The second prong, the targeted student behavioral
intervention model, is based on the concept that misbehavior has a cause and
that discipline should address that cause.
The process focuses on the students as the purpose of both the
educational system and the protective efforts.
It also focuses on the students as both sources of behavioral problems
and part of the solution.
Connecting the two prongs is the synergism of academic
success and behavior. It is
accepted that success in learning promotes good behavior and good behavior
promotes success in learning while failure promotes poor behavior and poor
behavior promotes failure. A
corollary is an unsafe school stifles learning but oppressive security measures
repress learning. Intervention
strategies must be developed to support a sound academic program, not just to
control behavior.
The complex nature of violence means not only that
there are no simple, single solutions but also no 100% solutions.
The combined academic/behavior approach is required to achieve
significant, long-term results but continued long-term results require continued
maintenance of the program. In addition, no matter how well the program is designed and
administered, a certain amount of violence will always exist.
This paper describes the use of action research to
develop and implement a Comprehensive Safe Schools Project.
It includes information on the targeted schools, onsite protocols, and
processes used for faculty training as well as a detailed description of
results. Anecdotal data from a
number of schools are also presented that illustrate longitudinal results for
schools that continue to use the approach and those that do not.
American society has been undergoing dramatic changes in recent times.
At the close of the twentieth century, American people have observed the
rise of violent crimes among our youth, especially in high schools throughout
the nation. This epidemic has left politicians, educators, and more
importantly, parents without direction on how to cure this problem.
The violent episodes that have occurred in Pearl, Mississippi, Paducah,
Kentucky, Jonesboro, Arkansas, Edinboro, Pennsylvania, and Littleton, Colorado,
have prompted a nation of onlookers to take notice of the violent trends that
are developing among our youth.
Within
the state of Florida, the violent trends have also become a hindrance for the
advancement of our youth. According
to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (1997) between 1985-1995, juveniles
accounted for 17 percent of all violent crime arrests.
Since 1995, the percentages have risen nearly 10 percent.
This leads us to a critical question.
Has society somehow failed this present generation of youth that are
committing more violent crimes and are dropping out of high school at a higher
rate?
It
is the opinion of the authors that society has indeed failed these at-risk youth
as well as others that have entered the American criminal justice system.
Society is currently focusing its attention on removing disruptive
students from the classroom including locking them up in correctional facilities
which reduces their opportunities for education.
In addition, disruptive youth usually are either under-educated or do not
possess any formal vocational skills. Traditional
cause-effect disciplinary approaches or “canned” curricular approaches are
not working. Consequently, we
continue to generate a high recidivism rate among juveniles that spend their
entire adolescence behind bars. How
do we break this cycle of disruptive behavior-poor academic performance?
Clearly education must play a major role but, to be successful, it must
address this violence generating cycle from a more holistic perspective.
Among
the most important advances in student discipline procedures over the past
decade is recognition of the need for school-wide behavior support systems.
Historically, discipline in schools has been driven by attention to
specific children with problem behaviors. This
continues to be an essential component of school policy.
However, a major advance has occurred through recent efforts to define
proactive, school-wide systems of support.
The goals of school-wide systems are to define, teach and support
appropriate behaviors in a way that establishes a culture of competence within
schools. When a competent culture
is established, the students are more likely to support appropriate behavior and
discourage inappropriate behavior by their peers. In competent cultures, the teachers find themselves teaching
the entire class, rather than continually trying to control a few disruptive
individuals.
The learning environment must facilitate the learning experience. Learning cannot occur in an environment that does not: 1) promote individual, small and large group activities; 2) allow time for individualized instruction; and, 3) provide for peer and adult interaction. It must also serve as a laboratory for trying something new and practicing what is taught in order to become more proficient. The foundation for such an environment includes structure, order, security, and a sense of trust and acceptance. The vast majority of teacher-identified needs are attributed to an inability, on their part, to establish a structured, well-communicated environment that is not oppressive.
The Comprehensive Safe Schools Project is designed to empower faculty, students and school administrators to change their entire school culture and, in so doing, break the cycle of disruptive behavior-poor academic performance. The project uses principles based upon complex adaptive systems theory, action research methodology, and competency-based implementation strategies. This project has been implemented and achieved significant results in 42 schools with diverse student and faculty populations within the state of Florida, USA. Schools that have implemented and maintained the project report significant reductions in out-of-class referrals, increased on-task behaviors and subsequent academic improvement. Teachers report feeling empowered, not only within their individual classroom but within their school as well. Administrators report feeling increased faculty support. This project has implications for any school because of its design approach and implementation methodology.
The control of school violence is a complex problem. The number and diversity of solutions proposed and attempted attest to the complexity. The solutions proposed parallel the approaches various criminologists have advanced to solve violence in society in general. Some say the violent person is "evil" and thus different from the rest of us so all we have to do is identify and treat or remove the evil person. Alternatively, others say the violent person is poorly socialized so the key is to improve the social controls. Still others blame not the violent person but our social system that allegedly generates and perpetuates violence so their solution is to change our social system. Facing the failure of all these simple solutions, some researchers advanced the notion that "nothing works." After every major violent incident in a school, one can hear each of these reasons espoused by at least one person in a media interview.
These solutions tend to have one thing in common -- they approach the problem from a simple cause-and-effect approach. They identify a single cause for an event and propose to remedy future such events by eliminating that cause. Single focus solutions have one other common characteristic -- they don't work. It may be that a simple solution cannot fix a complex problem, or it may be that a simple solution would work but exactly which solution is appropriate is not easily determined or, more likely, a complex problem may require multiple solutions. The only thing that seems certain is that, if the problem varies, the solution also varies.
The
basic problem is that the way most people perceive the systems in which they
live has little to do with reality. People
tend to focus on event-level explanations and assume cause and effect are
closely related in time and space. This
linear, short-term, open-loop thinking contrasts with a real world of multiple
feedback, delays, and far-reaching non-linearities.
Systems thinking is necessary to gain a better understanding of the
systems around us including the systems that make up a school.
As noted above when faced with an act of violence or disruptive
behavior there is a tendency to assume that there is some external event that
caused it. With a systems approach,
there is a more comprehensive viewpoint; namely that the internal structure of
the system may have been an important factor in generating the problem.
"Many people try to explain student disruptive behavior and poor performance merely by trying to explain how one set of events causes another, or, when they study a problem in depth, by showing a particular set of events is part of a longer term 'pattern of behavior'" (Kirkwood, 1998, pg., 2). The difficulty with this "event causes events" orientation is that it does not lead to very powerful ways to alter the undesirable performance. "This is because you can always find another undesirable event that caused the one that you thought was the cause" (Kirkwood, 1998, pg. 2). However, shifting from only an external event structure to also focusing on the internal system structure lets you improve your possibility of achieving your outcomes, i.e. reduction of student disruptive behavior in school and classroom settings. This is because the system structure is frequently the underlying source of the difficulty.
How does one identify the problem and determine the appropriate solutions? Traditionally, social scientists have attempted to inform administrators, teachers, parents and politicians about school violence. Their research, however, has proven inadequate. The inadequacy lies not in the quality of the research, nor in the efficacy of the theory, but rather, in the nature of the science employed. The traditional scientific approach has not adequately handled the analysis of a complex system. Instead of focusing on isolating and analyzing components of a system, a more effective approach is offered by a "systems analysis" approach.
It is
no longer possible to ignore the complexity of the systems that we are a part
of, nor can we deny the need to improve our ability to function in them.
Understanding complex, dynamic systems requires the use of systems
analysis. Heylighen and Joslyn
(1999) asserted that systems analysis "applies systems principles to aid a
decision-maker with problems of identifying, reconstructing, optimizing, and
controlling a system (usually a socio-technical organization), while taking into
account multiple objectives, constraints and resources.
It aims to specify possible courses of action, together with their risks,
costs and benefits."
Systems
analysis is not new but only recently has it become effective.
The conceptual framework, body of knowledge and set of tools that
comprise systems analysis have been developed over the past 50 years.
During the 1960's, the basic systems analysis approach of
analyzing the interactions of components rather than the components themselves
matured in a number of disciplines. But
the results were limited due primarily to calculation limitations. Unable to effectively analyze any but the relatively simple
systems, the approach showed little development until the availability of the
personal computer in the mid 1980's. The
ready availability of personal computers allowed researchers in diverse fields
to study the particular complex systems of their disciplines and eventually to
develop a more extensive taxonomy of complexity in general.
However, systems analysis has not been applied in the fields of criminal
justice or education as a means of reducing violence or disruptive behavior.
The
essence of systems thinking lies in a holistic approach that complements the
traditional analytical approach rather than supplementing it.
The systems principles mentioned in the definition above vary according
to the complexity of the system being analyzed.
Traditionally a complex system was "commonly understood as any
system consisting of a large number of interacting components (agents,
processes, etc.) whose aggregate activity is non-linear (not derivable from the
summations of the activity of individual components), and typically exhibits
hierarchical self-organization under selective pressures." (Joslyn and
Rocha, 2000, pg. 71). But, as a
social system, a school is even more complex than that description.
A school includes agents--students, teachers and administrators--whose
behavior is determined by decisions made on the basis of their perception of a
situation and their accumulated knowledge.
This means that we are concerned with both the individual agent's
decision-making capabilities and with the complex, emergent, collective behavior
of the populations of decision-making agents, and also, with the environment in
which the individuals and populations are making their decisions.
The key systems principles that must be considered are described in the
following paragraphs.
Systems
contain agents of varying types that
interact with each other, with objects and with their environment.
There usually is a structure relating the agents within their population
and among populations of agents. In
a school, the principal agents are students, teachers and administrators.
These agents act individually or collectively according to decisions they
make.
The actions
are chosen from a set of strategies
known to the agents. A key task of
systems analysis is to identify the strategies being employed or not, what
affects the choice of strategy, how strategies work and how they change over
time and why. Common modes of
change are through learning but sometimes a change in the environment will also
force adaptive changes. Sample
school strategies include: students choose to do their work or daydream or be
disruptive, etc.; teachers choose among choices of discipline, rewards, etc.;
principals choose among in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, etc.
The
actions of one population affect the environment of another.
This interaction is called a
co-evolutionary process. A
school is an excellent example of this process as without a population of
students there would be no need for teachers and without a population of
teachers there would be no need for administrators.
The size and function of the school does not evolve so much as co-evolve
with changes in one population determining changes in the others and similarly,
changes in the strategies of one population prompting changes in the others.
Each
agent goes through a process when
making a decision. This process is
illustrated in Figure 1 using a student as the agent. A stimulus impacts the equilibrium of the student.
This may originate internally, from another agent in the school or from
the environment. The student
accesses the stimulus and develops a perception about how he believes it will
affect him and decides what to do about it.
The diamond shape represents the set of strategies available for the
student to choose from. These strategies range from violence to altruism.
The action of the student produces a result that the student again
assesses and decides whether the action was successful or not.
One characteristic of an agent is that as an individual, it can only
measure certain aspects of the environment, stimuli, and even results.
In other words, there is both the real world and the world as the agent
perceives it. This is true of
students, teachers and administrators. No
one of them has the entire picture nor can they accurately evaluate the current
status.
Figure 1 A representative agent's steady-state
equilibrium
The
collective actions of the system produce a non-linear result that is different
from the results that could be produced by any agent individually.
These emergent properties are
a defining characteristic of a complex adaptive system.
In a school, the emergent properties include: cooperative learning, team
teaching and social skills development. The
school is successful when the students, teachers and administrators function as
a society-in-miniature, producing collective behaviors approximating those
required of the larger society.
The
results produced by the system, of course depend on the nature of the agents,
but they also depend heavily on the structure of the system.
The systemic interrelationships are responsible for particular patterns
of behavior and the resultant events. A
change in the interrelationship between the teachers and the administration as
simple as creating a form to be filled out by the administration whenever
disciplinary action takes place may affect the pattern of discipline
administered by the teachers. The
change in pattern of discipline by the teachers may, in turn, dramatically
affect the behavior and learning patterns of the students.
The
environment of the system is equally critical.
A society, of course, is a vast collection of overlapping and interacting
systems. Often an individual may
even be a member of more than one system. Establishing
the boundaries when studying a system such as a school is a problem.
In a study, one has to balance the level of complexity against the level
of information required. We have
set the boundary of the school as including students, teachers and
administrators. Also important are
parents, district and state administrators, the immediate neighborhood and
interacting agencies such as the police, social work agencies, etc.
The physical environment also is important as the location of a school
affects its safety considerations.
Figure 2 diagrams the key interactions in a school system. The three key agents involved are the students, teachers and the administration. The student and teacher are shown as singular although there are group effects (faculty and student body) that must be considered. On the other hand, parents and superior school administration (district and state levels) are considered as part of the environment to simplify the diagram even though individual parents or officials may have significant interactions as agents.
Figure 2: Key interactions within a school system
The diagram emphasizes several features -- that there are three key agents, that they interact in observable ways, that they each have an equilibrium that responds to stimuli from the others as well as from the environment, and that the interactions are complex, even with the simplifications imposed. The mere act of creating the diagram forces one to discard the "evil" student, "tyrannical" teacher and "lousy" principal canards. Rather, it compels one to consider the interactive ramifications of the actions and reactions of each agent. Similarly, even casually perusing the stimulus-response-result cycle associated with each agent requires one to regard students, teachers and administration, all as individuals to be considered rather than as nebulous conglomerates to be controlled, confronted or challenged. In our case, we examined the school faculty/student beliefs, and expectations, service delivery systems and system structures.
"(We) need to make a greater effort to involve teachers on Action Research…many are waiting to be invited to participate in research studies in which they examine students’ preconceptions, or effective teaching strategies. It is through joint research studies that science instruction in the schools will improve." (Dorothy Gabel, Presidential Address at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, 1995, cited in MacIssac, 1996, p. 1).
The project outlined in this paper utilized action research methodology. Action research, also known as participatory research, action science, collaborative inquiry, emancipatory research, action learning, contextual action research, and participatory action research (O’Brien, 1998; Greenwood and Levin, 1998), is social research carried out by a team that includes a researcher(s) and members of a community or organization in order to resolve a problem or improve their situation. There are three core elements to action research:
· Research: valid knowledge is generated by using research methods that are most appropriate for the situation at hand;
· Participation: researchers and local stakeholders work collaboratively to define problems, cogenerate knowledge, conduct research, take action and interpret results;
· Action: knowledge is gained for the purpose of social reform; the intent is to empower local members to more effectively improve their situation.
Kurt Lewin, working in the 1940’s, is thought to be the scholar who coined the term “action research” (Greenwood and Levin, 1998; O’Brien, 1998). Lewin argued that in order to “understand and change certain social practices, social scientists have to include practitioners from the real social world in all phases of inquiry” (cited in McKernan, 1991, p. 10). Lewin (1948, p. 206) constructed a theory of action research, which “proceeds in a spiral of steps each of which is composed of planning, action and fact-finding (evaluation) about the result of the action”.
Action research is a cyclical rather than a linear process. Problems are defined, data is collected, action is taken and assessments are made but each may occur simultaneously and all are revisited throughout the project, often leading to changes to meet the challenges and new understanding that emerges along the way. Figure 3 (Hopkins, 1985) diagrams the process, although, in practice, the steps are not distinct but tend to overlap.
Figure 3: Schematic of Action Research
The action research approach is problem-focused, context specific and future oriented; the participants in the inquiry are involved in the change process (Teaching and Learning Task Force, 2000; Greenwood and Levin, 1998; Hart and Bond, 1995; McCutcheon and Jurg, 1990). Deshler and Ewert (1995) provided a list of common assumptions among the various traditions of action research. These revolve around common values, ownership, and commitment to action, external researcher role, research methods and resolution of differences. The common values in action research are “the democratization of knowledge production and use; ethical fairness in the benefits of the knowledge generation process; an ecological stance toward society and nature, appreciation of the capacity of humans to reflect, learn, and change, and a commitment to nonviolent social change” (p. 6). The right of the participating group to have ownership of the research is a fundamental tenet of action research, due to the assumption that the participants have relevant experience and knowledge that is beneficial to the research. The use of findings and their implications should be explicit and the research participants should be involved in all stages of the research process. The role of the researcher is as a contributor of expertise rather than as a neutral and distant observer, as is typical of traditional scientific research. Action research allows the research methods to be more flexible and fluid, if necessary, and are selected for their appropriateness to the given issue and type of result desired. If differences arise between the researcher and participants regarding interpretation or dissemination of results, these differences are to be acknowledged and resolved in a fair process. The emphasis is on communication and just procedures for the negotiation of differences.
Action research has been used most often in the field of education, where research is chiefly concerned with pragmatic issues of practitioners. Deshler and Ewert (1995) traced the development of action research in education to the work of Buckingham who, in the mid 1920s, found that “educational practitioners are more likely to make better decisions and engage in more effective practices if they are participants in their own research activities” (p. 4). They also found that Dewey advocated that teachers “should control the educational research agenda and participate in conducting inquiry to test the worth of educational knowledge” (p. 4). Corey (1953) was instrumental in introducing action research into mainstream education research.
Conventionally, classroom problems such as lack of cooperation are handled by teachers who solve the problem and then move on to solve other problems. Foshay (1998) argued that the conventional, linear process of handling one problem after another differs from an action research approach. The action researcher/teacher establishes a systematic and orderly procedure for dealing with classroom problems. The first step in the strategy is deciding how things would change if the problem were solved. Next, the teacher decides what evidence is needed to come up with a solution to the problem. The third step is collecting the evidence for determining the solution. Fourth, the teacher interprets the evidence and finally, decides what questions arise and require further inquiry. Padak and Padak (2000) added another stage to this process – sharing results with others. This collegiality allows other teachers to know what has been tried and succeeded and what has failed, allowing them to use this advancement of knowledge to their advantage and to generalize it to other situations. Foshay noted that the action research process is different from routine classroom problem solving because each step in the process is deliberate and the teacher is aware of each step’s purpose and implications.
Educational action researchers operate out of educational institutions and their focus is typically on curriculum development, professional development and the social context application of learning. Watt (2000) noted that educational action researchers typically research a project over a time frame of one year. During this time, the researcher identifies a problem area in the school, gathers data on the problem, reflects on the data, uses the data to make teaching decisions grounded in evidence rather than hunches, and assesses the results and revises the problem of study. The problems that can be alleviated through the use of educational action research are varied. A small sample of situations that have been aided by the intervention of action research are classroom preparation (McEwan, Field, and Kawamoto, 1997), emotional and behavioral disorders (Cheney, 1998), problems of educational practice (Beasley, 2000; Johnson and Button, 1998; Kuhne and Quigley, 1997), rehabilitation and disability research (Guerrero, 1995), and curriculum development (Riding, Fowell, and Levy, 2000).
The current study focused on the reduction of violence in schools using a unique behavioral intervention model. The model differs from conventional models in three key ways. One, it is tailored to the culture of the school. Two it is designed to comprehensively address the complexities of a school system. Three, it is based on research into both of these aspects.
The
first phase of the process was to examine complex cultural patterns unique to a
school. These patterns define the
expectations of all members of the school community -- the teachers,
administration, students -- and the immediate systems impacting the school --
parents, politicians and local community. These
patterns also identify the resources available for change.
The entire school community then develops a discipline plan based on the
identified expectations. The
process centers on the teacher as the individual responsible for managing both
the academic and behavioral accomplishments of the student.
As the individual responsible for making the daily decisions involving
discipline, the teacher is also involved in designing the strategies and
tailoring the interventions to the culture of the school and to the needs of the
student.
The
second phase, development of the behavioral intervention model, was based on
several concepts. First, misbehavior is a complex process and any disciplinary
actions should address that complexity. The
actual cause of a specific disruptive event may have little relationship with
the apparent trigger for the incident. The
true cause may be out-of-class or even out-of-school.
It may not be a single event but a culmination of a series of events.
This approach does not require the teacher to be a psychologist but only
to recognize that the services of a counselor or psychologist may be required
and to request those services along with the discipline imposed.
Second, this approach acknowledged that the purpose of the educational
system is to educate students, not just to control them.
Thus teaching appropriate behavior is as much a part of the curriculum as
academic subjects and is taught in a similar manner rather than in the
traditional authoritarian style. Third,
this approach also recognized that, if we as a society are going to require
students to attend school, we have the moral and legal responsibility to protect
them while they are in attendance.
Underlying
the model was research using action research to apply established principles
relating academic achievement and social behavior within the culture of the
individual school. It is accepted
that learning promotes good behavior and good behavior promotes learning while
failure in learning promotes poor behavior and poor behavior promotes failure. A corollary is that an unsafe school stifles learning but
oppressive security measures also repress learning. Intervention strategies must be developed that support a
sound academic program.
Another
innovative aspect of the research was the systems analysis approach.
Schools were viewed as complex adaptive systems comprised of
decision-making agents that interact with each other in furtherance of their own
individual and collective goals. Taken
into account were the interactions among these agents as well as the internal
motivations of the individual agents. Those
participating were advised that the complexity of such an approach meant that
there would be no simple, single solutions and no 100% solutions but rather,
that the combined approach would be required to achieve significant, long-term
results and that continued long-term results would require continued maintenance
of the program.
Forty-two
schools were selected between 1995-2000 on a voluntary basis to participate in
the Comprehensive Safe School Project. Schools were made aware of the project at
statewide and regional forums for principals or school district administrators
and given the opportunity to self nominate.
Criteria for selection were as follows:
1.
Commitment of school administration to a year long plan development
process
2.
Opportunity to observe the school and present the plan to the faculty
3.
Secure commitment of at least 80% of the faculty to the year long plan
development process
Once
selected, the following sequence of events occurred although it must be noted,
that at times, many of these activities occurred simultaneously as the project
progressed throughout the year:
1) Conduct On-site observations/interviews - interviewed the principal and surveyed the faculty to determine flexibility regarding curriculum, scheduling, service delivery, etc.
2) Observe school activities - Observed targeted classrooms, lunchroom, hallways, bus transitions, etc. to determine potential discipline "hot spots" and view how discipline was handled in actual settings.
3) Summary of on-site findings shared with faculty to validate observations and interviews
4) Presentation of plan overview and process and each development step – purpose was to secure faculty commitment. If in agreement, the process proceeded.
5) Identify faculty and administrative outcomes for plan.
6) Identify faculty and administrative workgroup (5-7 members) to draft plan for faculty to review and serve as problem solving workgroup and liaison for rest of faculty
7) Facilitator and workgroup draft plan to present to faculty
8) Present to faculty for acceptance –only components that entire faculty accepts are included- facilitator uses consensus building techniques
9) Once Draft has been agreed to by Faculty, it is implemented
10) Plan is constantly reviewed and revised throughout process for the entire year
The
Comprehensive Safe Schools project was developed for the effective design,
implementation, and evaluation of school-wide behavioral support systems.
The model is specifically designed to meet the unique needs of each
classroom and school. It provides a
framework for the sequential building of a comprehensive classroom behavioral
support system by individual teachers. It
also provides a process for developing a school-wide behavioral support system
using the collective thinking of the entire faculty.
Each component of the plan reflects and communicates the school's
philosophy and mission. All
expectancies, beliefs, rules, interventions, and consequences are clearly
articulated. This process is based
on effective research of the school's culture, resources and problems using
action research methodology. As
illustrated in the Hopkins (1985) chart (Figure 3) previously discussed, the
action research process incorporates the following phases: 1) planning, 2)
action, 3) observation, and 4) reflection.
Each phase repeats itself until the project has concluded.
The planning phase examines the problem from the perspective of the individual school and formulates the policies and procedures to address the problem. The examination includes two steps: identifying the problem and the desired outcomes within the culture of the school by the researcher and then repeating the process by a school level team. The school level team then takes the next step of setting the goals and developing the procedures and policies to achieve those goals.
Defining the problem in a school setting begins with identification of the complex relationships between the faculty, administration and the students. Each of these makes up the culture and sub-cultures of the school. Their interactions and beliefs about their roles and responsibilities must be identified as they play perhaps the most important role in determining the success regarding long-term implementation of any violence-reduction plan. To obtain information regarding their interactions and their belief structures, the research director conducted interviews, observations, and surveys. This information was shared with a school level team from each school for validation. Once validated, the information was used to identify strengths and weaknesses within the current school culture. The school team then identified desired cultural change outcomes along with possible implementation strategies.
Using
the same process; observations, interviews, surveys and adding a review of
empirical data (student behavioral and academic performance data), a team of
teachers assessed the current status of student performance, identifying
strengths and weaknesses within the system.
The school level team then used the strengths and weaknesses identified
to review, revise or develop the following categories:
1.
Clarifying
Beliefs
a.
teacher beliefs on discipline;
2.
Establishing
a framework for Safe Schools
a.
school-wide expectancies;
b.
school-wide and classroom rules;
c.
enforcement policies for school-wide and classroom rules;
3.
Maintaining
A Safe School Climate and Culture
a.
strategies for targeting specific behaviors;
b.
common in-class interventions;
c.
common in-school interventions;
4.
Developing
Communication
a.
teacher request-for-assistance process
a.
Outcome Generation
Each
school, prior to implementing the project, developed a set of outcomes to assess
the implementation of the project. Further,
each school made a certain level of commitment prior to beginning the project or
the facilitator would not proceed. The
following is a sample set of outcomes and commitment criteria used in most of
the schools participating in this project.
School:
XXXXX
Date XXXXXX
Goal:
To identify and provide
intensive support to schools regarding the development of comprehensive
discipline strategies both proactive and reactive as well as alternatives to
deal with the suspension of students especially.
Participant
Commitment Criteria:
Principal:
•
to be flexible and open to change in curriculum and service delivery
•
to be involved in training when possible
•
to endorse and support plan
Faculty:
•
to be flexible and open to change in curriculum and service delivery
•
to agree to be active participants in training
•
to be able to define outcome indicators for process and system
District
:
• to be
supportive, not resistant
Each
school, prior to any training were also asked to identify targeted outcomes and
outcome indicators to determine the effectiveness of this approach based on the
faculty's criteria.
Sample
Outcomes:
1.
• XXXXX will develop and implement a Comprehensive Safe School model
based on faculty beliefs and driven by faculty-developed outcomes. Note that the
Plan will build on what is currently in place.
2.
Staff will develop and improve skills for targeting specific behavior and
implementing appropriate in-class and in-school interventions to address
targeted student behavior.
3.
Our goal will include the following:
•
Decrease the frequency and seriousness of discipline incidents of students,
especially those with disabilities.
•
Increase on-task student behavior
•
Increase student academic achievement
It should be noted that every school identified monitoring the number of out-of-class referrals as their number one concern. When students are not in class, learning is not occurring, regardless of the reason. Consequently this project focused on an assessment of the reduction in the number of classroom referrals over the course of the year that the plan was being implemented. In two schools we were able to track the data for four years. This is a work in progress and we will be returning back to those original schools and examining the academic and behavior performance in the year 2000-2001.
b.
Plan Development
Prior
to the training, facilitators with school staff were able to:
•
Clarify needs
•
Identify resources (including personnel)
•
Develop a training delivery system
In terms of developing the actual plan, the sequence of events was accomplished through two separate methods.
Method A – Developing an independent work-group
Thirty
of the of the forty-two schools received training from a team of school members
in a three to five day work shop who then trained the rest of the faculty
without a facilitator present. A
facilitator provided follow-up technical assistance as requested through out the
year.
Model B – Develop Plan Working Directly with Faculty
Twelve of the forty-two schools received training directly by the facilitator as an entire faculty. A work group was developed to work with the facilitator during non-faculty wide in-service days.
The action required to implement the plan involves two steps; training the faculty in the policies and procedures developed and executing that training.
The intervention actually begins with the problem and
outcome identification phase. Change
begins to occur almost immediately when the faculty begins to view itself as a
culture made up of sub-cultures, each impacting each other to the better or
detriment of the other. This
perspective begins to develop during the training step.
The faculty begins
implementation of the plan at the pace and level of commitment that they
determine to be best for them and based upon their pre-determined outcomes.
All effective school-wide discipline systems have six major components in
common (Colvin, et al., 1993):
(a) an agreed upon and common approach to discipline, (b) a positively
stated statement of purpose, (c) a small number of positively stated
expectations for all students and staff, (d) procedures for teaching these
expectations to all students, (e) a continuum of procedures for encouraging
displays and maintenance of these expectations, (f) a continuum of procedures
for discouraging displays of rule-violating behavior, and (g) procedures for
monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the discipline system on a
regular and frequent basis.
Inasmuch as the planning phase consisted of interviews of school staff and observations of the school, the observation phase is very similar. The same techniques are used to conduct the on-going assessment.
Assessment protocols followed the same procedures as the intervention protocols. Data were used to revise the plan when necessary and gauge implementation success. From the beginning of the process student and teacher anecdotal data was captured and used with faculty to demonstrate progress or identify implementation issues.
•
Interview with Principal
•
Clarify issues:
• review request for assistance
• review expected outcomes
• review outcome indicators
•
Survey Faculty
•
Conduct Site observations
•
Review/revise process
•
Assess progress against outcomes
The reflection phase is a key to action research. How is the project progressing? What changes need to be made? These two questions are the focus of the last step in the process and leads to the first step in the next cycle of the process.
Throughout
the year and at each visit, progress was reviewed against the plan and revised
accordingly. Rarely did the final
plan resemble its original version. Rarely
did the original barriers to implementation stay the same.
Between 1995 and 2000, 42
schools received training in this process.
With each school and each year the process was refined to the level it is
currently being used today. Thirty-eight
of the 40 schools received one year or less training. Frequently a team from a school was trained in a 3-5 day
workshop. The school team then
trained the rest of the faculty. The
facilitator as requested throughout the year provided follow-up technical
assistance. While there are no data
to substantiate this, it appears the more requests for follow-up technical
assistance, the greater the reduction in referrals and the more successful the
implementation of the plan. Of
the forty schools, the data suggest this to be the more effective method of
training. Faculty and workgroups
reported: 1) it provided clearer understanding of concepts by all concerned; 2)
less dissention occurred when a neutral third party was involved; and 3) it was
easier to break through communication barriers between administration and
teaching faculty.
From this five-year experience several key elements were discovered to make this process more than just a short-term success. The following data reflect a summary of data from 40 of the schools after one year of implementation. (It should be noted that these numbers did not remain after one year because most of these schools did not do follow up training in subsequent years for a variety of reasons.) After one year of implementation they reported the following:
Table 1:
Results in 21 Elementary Schools
|
55-70% |
|
|
41-50% |
|
|
13-35% |
Increase in
requests-for-assistance for in-class interventions by teachers |
|
1-3% |
Decrease in
recidivistic behavior for in-school-suspension students |
Table 1 shows a dramatic decrease in out-of-class referrals and acts of violence; the targeted goals of the faculty. Inferred in the out-of-class referrals are an increase in on-task behavior and an increase of academic opportunities. In our qualitative analysis, teachers report a significant improvement in student academic performance. It is also significant to report that teachers began to request assistance prior to suspending students in a dramatic fashion (13-35%) as reported by administrators.
Table 2: Results in 9 Middle Schools
|
MIDDLE SCHOOLS (N=9) |
|
|
44-84% |
Reduction in out-of-class referrals for the year |
|
45-65% |
Reduction in reported acts of violence by students |
|
5-15%
|
Increase in requests-for-assistance for in-class
interventions by teachers |
|
1-5% |
Decrease in recidivistic behavior for in-school-suspension
students |
|
45-65%
|
Increase of in-school support services prior to
teacher/staff using out of school suspension |
|
HIGH SCHOOLS (N=2) |
|
|
44-84% |
Reduction in out-of-class referrals for the year |
|
45-65% |
Reduction in reported acts of violence by students |
|
5-15%
|
Increase in requests-for-assistance for in-class
interventions by teachers |
|
1% |
Decrease in recidivistic behavior for in-school-suspension
students |
|
45-65%
|
Increase of in-school support services prior to
teacher/staff using out of school suspension |
While the data reported for
the two high schools in Table 3 show dramatic gains, it must be reported that
after one year they did not retain these gains. These schools changed administrations and the process lost
its momentum. Throughout the
project, it has been virtually impossible to implement the process in a high
school. Changing the culture of
high school is difficult; frequently because the faculty is searching for
cause/effect quick fixes. There is
a greater focus on academic performance and graduation requirements and a
quicker use of exclusionary methods as a means of discipline.
This can be attributed, at least partially, to the State of Florida’s
emphasis on assessing teacher performance based on student academic performance
and attainment of prescribed academic standards.
Consequently, teachers report that there is little time to try behavioral
interventions, modify curriculum or service delivery.
In addition, retaining disruptive students with low academic standards
lowers the performance of the total class while removing the poor student
improves it.
Table
4: Results in 5 Alternative Schools/Juvenile Justice Centers
|
ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLS / JUVENILE JUSTICE
CENTERS (N=5) |
|
|
44% |
Reduction in out-of-class referrals for the year |
|
55% |
Reduction in reported acts of violence by students |
|
5%
|
Increase in requests-for-assistance for in-class
interventions by teachers |
|
1%
|
Decrease in recidivistic behavior for in-school-suspension
students |
|
4%
|
Increase of in-school support services |
Table 4 dramatically
indicates that this process works with students identified as some of the most
disruptive. Teachers report
qualitatively that they see dramatic difference in their students' performance
and, of even greater significance, how they view their students.
No longer are their students, “bad seeds”; rather they view them as
students who have potential and, with their guidance, have the opportunity for a
second chance.
Developing the Comprehensive Safe School Plan requires a
yearlong process to change the culture, develop implementation strategies, and
communicate them effectively to the entire school community.
To ensure the plan remains dynamic it must be constantly revisited.
Those schools that did not build in a plan for maintenance did not
maintain the impact of the program. Those
that did maintain the program have had a long lasting impact and
are reported separately in their referral data over the last four years.
To illustrate this point, data from two middle schools are provided in
Table 5. These
middle schools implemented the program similarly to the other nine middle
schools but each subsequent year they conducted pre-school, mini-in-service
training and achieved remarkable results.
Table
5: Results in 2 Middle Schools that applied program for four years.
|
NUMBER OF REFERRALS |
||||
|
School
Year |
95-96 |
96-97 |
97-98 |
98-99 |
|
MMS |
2618 |
1223 |
908 |
983
* |
|
RMS |
777 |
497 |
419 |
429 |
* School adopted tighter
behavior criteria
As can be seen in Table 5,
with constant re-training and in-service training, the schools were not only
able to maintain their effort but were able to reduce the number of out-of-class
referrals dramatically for two straight years and to maintain their low level
the third year. One school even
tightened up its criteria defining disruptive behavior in the third year and
still maintained its lower level.
Schools that have been successful in implementing the Safe School
Model also describe the following benefits:
1.
Increases in
attendance
2.
Student
self-reports of a more positive and calm environment
3.
Teacher reports of
a more positive and calm environment
4.
Reduction in the
proportion of students who engage in behavioral disruptions
5.
Reduction in the
total number of behavioral disruptions
6.
Development of more positive
relationships with parents
7.
Teachers reassess their
in-class interventions
8.
School Administrators reassess
how to use their administrative staff (assistant principal, guidance counselor,
social worker, psychologist, etc.
9.
Redefining of the role of
in-school suspension and other short term out-of-class interventions
10.
Developing creative
partnerships with agencies and other community partnerships
An effective Safe School program is only as good as the structures
and processes that are in place to support its sustained use.
A number of these factors were identified in the conduct of this project.
Consistent with considering a school as a complex adaptive system, each
and every one of them must be considered in order for the intended results to
occur.
Since a school is a set of three complex systems that are strongly
impacted by several outside systems, it is important to secure the active
support and participation of all the key groups.
In particular, the research director should secure a commitment and
agreement from the principal school administrator and at least 80% of the staff
for active support and participation.
The process of action research requires that the interventions be
implemented under the direction of a designer but with the input of those
participating in the project. This
project demonstrated that an effective technique is to establish a school-wide
leadership or behavior support team to guide and direct the process.
This team should be made up of an administrator, grade level
representatives, and support staff.
One key of a complex system, particularly a school, is its
environment both physical and cultural. The
first step in planning is to assess the environment and the current status of
the system. A research protocol
should be constructed to assess the status of school-wide discipline or positive
behavioral interventions and to determine those that support and define both
short and long term goals for improving the school-wide system.
The team should establish an implementation action plan that is based on
the status assessment and emphasizes the adoption of research-validated
practices.
Inherent in a complex adaptive system is the assurance that it will
change. The discipline program must
change with it. This means that the
team must establish affirmative procedures to maintain the implementation of the
program as well as procedures for on-going evaluation.
A successful strategy used in this project was to establish a data
collection and reporting system that permitted the regular and efficient
monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of the implementation of the
school-wide system of discipline.
It was observed that many schools made the mistake of implementing
a school-wide system of positive behavioral interventions and supports but
without monitoring its effectiveness on a regular and frequent basis.
Regular monitoring and evaluation were found to be necessary to: (a)
prevent ineffective practices from wasting time and resources, (b) improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of current procedures, (c) eliminate elements of
the system that are ineffective or inefficient, and (d) make modifications
before problem behavior patterns become too durable and difficult to modify.
One of the
easiest ways of monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of a school-wide
system used was to collect and analyze discipline referrals or behavior incident
reports. By examining data patterns
on a monthly basis, schools could make timely decisions about what was working,
what needed to be changed, and what needed to be eliminated.
The most useful discipline referral data displays indicated (a) number of
referrals per day per month, (b) number of referrals by location (e.g.,
playground, classroom, hallway, bus), (c) number of referrals by type of rule
violation (e.g., insubordination, fighting), (d) number of referrals by type of
consequence (e.g., discussion, in-school detention, out-of-school suspension),
and (e) number of students by number of referrals (i.e., repeat rule violators).
It was observed
that the schools with long-term success employed several key strategies.
Among them were:
1)
They made a year-long commitment to the development and implementation of
the plan. While each component
sounds simple, to make it a part of the school culture required practice,
reinforcement, and, at times, revision.
2)
They conducted a refresher "course" at the beginning of each
year. This assisted new faculty,
reminded experienced ones, and set the tone for the year.
3)
Administrative support remained high.
As always, actions spoke louder than words.
Targeted in-services based on a careful review of
requests-for-assistance, and developing in-school support services that
reflected teacher referrals are examples of productive action by administrators
in the successful schools.
4)
They had an active principal that participated in the training and in
classroom activities. The teachers
reported that the principal's support had a tremendous impact on their morale
and commitment to the plan.
Finally, the complex nature
of violence means that no matter how well a program is designed and
administered, a certain amount of violence will always exist.
Although the two schools that aggressively continued their commitment to
the project for three years reduced their referrals by up to 62%, none of the 42
schools eliminated violence completely, nor would they have been expected to.
The environment in which a school system exists contains far too many
violence-generating conditions for any school-based program to completely
overcome. It might be interesting
to speculate whether the disciplinary program implemented by this project was
primarily ameliorating the violence generated by previous, ill-advised school
policies. In other words, were the
schools themselves generating a certain amount of violence?
Given the dramatic success of the project, it would be worthwhile to
implement it in different cultural and educational contexts.
In summary, the Comprehensive Safe School Project has been
successful in 42 diverse schools throughout the state of Florida, United States
of America. It is based on a
philosophical foundation that crosses all cultures, and socioeconomic strata.
It employs an action research methodology that allows participants to
implement the plan and modify the design to meet their needs.
It is outcome based, with the desired outcome being developed by the
target audience. The interventions
are developed by the target audiences consequently they “own” them.
The results suggest the model can be replicated in virtually any setting.
Beasley, W.
(2000). Collaborative action
research in two high schools: A story of SS&C reform in North Carolina.
http://curie/uncg.edu/-wbeasley/action.html.
Cheney, D.
(1998). Using action research as a
collaborative process to enhance educators’ and families’ knowledge and
skills for youth with emotional or behavioral disorders. Preventing School
Failure. 42.
Colvin, G.,
Kameenui, E. J. & Sugai, G.
(1993). School-wide and Classroom Management of Students with Behavior Problems
in General Education Classrooms. Diagnostique
19(2-3),103-115
Corey, S.
(1953). Action Research to Improve School Practices.
New York: Columbia University Bureau of Publications.
Deshler, D. and
Ewert, M.
(1995). Participatory action
research: traditions and major assumptions.
http://www.parnet.org/parchive/docs/deshler_95/index.cfm.
Forshay, A.
(1998). Action research in the
nineties. The Educational Forum. 62. P. 108-112.
Greenwood, D.
and Levin, M.
(1998). Introduction to Action
Research: Social research for social
change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications.
Guerrero, J.
(1995). Research paradigm shift:
Participatory action research. http://interwork.sdsu.edu/projects/rrtcp/pubs/par.html.
Hart, E. and
Bond, M.
(1995). Action-Research for Health
and Social Care: A Guide to Practice.
Open University Press.
Heylighen, F and
Joslyn, C.
(1999) What is Systems Theory? Cambridge
Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd Ed. Robert Audi, ed.
Cambridge University Press. p.
898
Johnson, M. and
Button, K.
(1998). Action research paves the
way for continuous improvement. Journal
of Staff Development. 19.
p. 48-51.
Joslyn, Cliff
and Rocha, Luis M.
(2000) Towards Semiotic Agent-Based Models of Socio-Technical Organizations.
in Proc. AI, Simulation and Planning in High Autonomy Systems. ed H.S.
Sarjougnian, et al., pp 70-79.
Kemmis, S. and
McTaggert, R.
(1990). The Action Research
Planner. Geelong: Deakin University
Press.
Huhne, G. and
Quigley, B.
(1997). Understanding and using
action research in practice settings. New
Directions for Adult and Continuing Education.
Lewin, K.
(1948).
Resolving Social Conflicts: Selected Papers on Group dynamics.
New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers.
MacIssac, D.
(1996). An introduction to action
research. http://www.physics.nau.educ/~danmac/actionrsch.html.
McCutcheon, G. and Jurg, B.
(1990). Alternative perspectives on action research.
Theory Into Practice.
24:3.
McEwan, H.,
Field, B., and Kawamoto, S.
(1997). Learning to teach through
action research. Action in Teacher Education.
18. P. 47-56.
McKernan, J.
(1991). Curriculum Action Research: A Handbook of Methods and Resources for the
Reflective Practitioner.
London: Kogoan Page.
O’Brien, R.
(1998). An overview of the
methodological approach of action research.
http://www.web.net/~robrien/papers/arfinal.html.
Padak, N. and
Padak, G.
(2000). Research to practice:
Guidelines for planning action research projects.
http://archon.educ.kent.edu/Oasis/Pubs/0200-08.htm.
Riding, P.,
Fowell, S., and Levy, P.
(2000). An action research approach
to curriculum development. http://www.shef.ac.uk/~is/publications/infres/paper2.html.
Ryder, M.
(2000). Action research.
http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc/act_res.html.
Teaching and
Learning Task Force.
(2000). A definition of action
research. http://www.edu.coventry.ac.uk/Taskforce/actionre.htm.
Coventry University.
This paper is being converted to HTML format and will be posted here upon completion.