Saturday, June 15, 2019

Analyzing Your School Discipline Data Now . . . to Prepare for the New School Year (Part II)


Conducting “Special Situation Analyses” for Common School Areas and Peer-Related Anti-Social Behavior

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Message]

Dear Colleagues,

Prologue

   Later this week, I will be attending a small, interdisciplinary working conference, funded by the Spencer Foundation, that I was invited to by the Loyola University Chicago Schools of Education and Law.  The theme of the Conference is Reducing Suspensions and Expulsions of Students with Disabilities: Linking Research, Law, Policy, and Practice.

   The focus of the conference is on building a research and policy agenda centering on changes to laws, policies, and school practices to prevent and respond to the behaviors of students with disabilities through non-exclusionary means.  The overall goal is to promote greater inclusion of students with disabilities in schools, and the more successful implementation of services, supports, and interventions for students demonstrating social, emotional, and behavioral challenges.

   At the Conference, I will be presenting a paper entitled:

Increasing Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Self-Management and Improving Multi-Tiered Systems of Support:  Most Students with Disabilities have Behavioral, Not Disciplinary, Problems
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   The Conference and my Paper fit perfectly into the three-part Blog series that we are currently in the middle of (this being Part II).  This Series is critical not just because bullying and the presence of behaviorally challenging students are increasing in schools nationwide, but because—as we have discussed many times before—districts and schools continue to use frameworks (like PBIS and SEL) and practices (like mindfulness strategies and Restorative Practice approaches) that have weak evidence-based foundations, and that sound and objective research studies have shown to be inconsequential at best.

   Unfortunately, even this week, I continue to hear that schools are sending teams this summer to PBIS and Restorative Practice trainings—with plans to implement these approaches come Fall. 

   These groups continue to believe (despite long-standing evidence) that a three- or five-day training of a representative team from a school gives this team the knowledge, skill, and expertise to implement a comprehensive, psychoeducationally-based school-wide approach that will change and sustain student, staff, and school behavior and interactions.
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A Quick Detour:  Max Eden Supports My Critique Above

   Before reviewing Part I of this Blog Series and introducing Part II, I want to summarize a research-rich article, Studies and Teachers Nationwide Say School Discipline Reform is Harming Students’ Academic Achievement and Safety, that was published this week (June 11, 2019) in the daily the74 Million.org newsletter.  The article was written by Max Eden, a senior fellow who specializes in education policy at the Manhattan Institute.

   Below are quotes reflecting some of Eden’s major points:

Last month, New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced that he would soon unveil further, sweeping changes to the discipline code of the nation’s largest school district. This promises to be another big step in the wrong direction for the district’s 1.1 million students, given the data suggesting that his predecessor’s reforms to sharply curtail school suspensions have done substantial harm: from rising student perceptions of violence and disrespect, to a troubling rise in bullying, to a dramatic increase in teacher assaults, to a rise in violence and other indicators on state data

The brightest evidence (of this), which comes to us from Chicago Public Schools, is rather equivocal: One study found that decreasing the length of suspensions led to a deterioration in school climate but had no effect on academics; another study found that slightly decreasing the frequency with which students were suspended for serious misbehavior had no impact on school climate and a slightly positive impact on academics.

Philadelphia went much further than Chicago, banning suspensions for nonviolent “conduct” offenses such as using profanity or failing to obey classroom rules. Researchers found a substantial negative effect on academics: Achievement decreased by 3 percentage points in math and nearly 7 percentage points in reading after three years. And, in a perverse irony, African-American students ended up spending more time out of school on suspension because the number of suspensions for more serious offenses rose.

Earlier this year, the RAND Corporation published a randomized control trial examining the effects of restorative justice in Pittsburgh as the district aggressively reduced suspensions. The results were mixed. On one hand, teachers in schools that implemented restorative justice reported an improvement in school safety, staff morale and their classroom management abilities. But students disagreed: They said their teachers’ classroom management abilities deteriorated and that students became less supportive of one another. Perhaps most alarmingly, academic achievement for African-American students decreased.

Taken as a whole, the academic literature suggests that modest efforts to reduce suspensions may be pursued with minimal effect, that aggressive efforts pose a serious risk to academics and that restorative justice may exacerbate rather than ameliorate harm. . . (A)s I’ve documented, teachers in school districts that implemented discipline reform under pressure from federal investigations do not believe it works.

In Denver, only 23% of teachers say the new approach to discipline improves behavior. In Charleston, South Carolina, just 14% of teachers believe it is an improvement over previous discipline policies, and in Madison, Wisconsin, only 13% of teachers think that it has a positive effect on behavior. In Oklahoma City, 11% of teachers said a greater implementation of “positive behavior interventions and supports” would help them be effective, compared with two-thirds who said greater implementation of traditional discipline would help.

A recent nationwide poll of elementary educators found that more than 70 percent believe disruptive behavior has increased over the past three years.

A statewide poll sponsored by the Oregon Education Association declared a “crisis of disrupted learning” and noted that 56% of teachers reported experiencing at least one “room clear” in the past year. (A “room clear” is when teachers direct all children to leave the classroom for their own safety while a disruptive student throws a tantrum.)
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   This article reinforces many of the discipline-focused Blogs that I have written recently and over the years.

   The “bottom line” is that policies rarely decrease school discipline problems or increase school safety or student engagement and their prosocial interactions . . . student behavior and school discipline problems are changed through integrated, multi-tiered evidence-based practices.

   In my Spencer Foundation Conference presentation this week in Chicago, I will discuss six national flaws that have slowed our progress in decreasing not just disproportionate discipline actions against students of color and with disabilities, but discipline actions with all students.

   These flaws are:

Flaw #1. State legislatures and local leaders are trying to change suspension and expulsion data through policies and mandates that dictate school decisions and classroom practices.

Flaw #2. The U.S. Office of Special Education Programs and, relatedly, state departments of education and other educational leaders are promoting one-size-fits-all frameworks that do not apply or have not addressed students with specific disabilities—especially those with the most challenging behaviors.

Flaw #3. Districts and schools are not recognizing that classroom management and teacher training, supervision, coaching, mentoring, and evaluation are keys to decreasing disproportionality.

Flaw #4. Schools and staff are using motivational strategies to change student behavior when they have not learned, mastered, or cannot apply the social, emotional, and behavioral skills needed to succeed.  That is, they are not discriminating skill deficit versus performance deficit students. 

They also are completing Functional Assessments of Behavior (FBAs) with the most challenging students when these students sometimes have biologically-based behaviors that are not (wholly) motivational in nature.

Flaw #5. Even when they are teaching skills, districts and schools often target constructs of behavior, rather than specific social, emotional, and behavioral skills. 

Flaw #6. Most districts, schools, and staff do not have the collective and comprehensive knowledge, skills, and resources needed to implement the multi-tiered (prevention, strategic intervention, intensive need/crisis management) social, emotional, and/or behavioral services, supports, and interventions needed by students.
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Review Part I of this Blog Series, and Introducing Part II

    In Part I of this Blog Series, we encouraged schools to evaluate the behavioral outcomes generated by their Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS), or school safety and discipline systems for the school year that just ended.

[CLICK HERE for Part I of this Blog Series]

   To do this, we established a context by reviewing a number of recent national reports that surveyed educators about students’ behavioral problems in their schools, and other reports suggesting that bullying (including cyberbullying) is increasing in our schools nationwide.  Some of these reports focused on Social and Emotional Learning approaches and outcomes, and some on school safety and bullying.

   The Social and Emotional Learning Reports included the following:

·       Report 1. A recent survey of 800 nationally-representative kindergarten through high school principals completed by the MCH Strategic Data company and published last month as K-12 Principals’ Assessment of Education. 

·       Report 2. A report, Breaking Bad Behavior, published by research company EAB that validates and extends the MCH Report above relative to elementary students’ behavioral challenges.

·       Report 3. A report, Teacher and Principal Perspectives on Social and Emotional Learning in America’s Schools, published earlier this year by the Rand Corporation.  It is based on a Spring, 2018 survey of the American Educator Panels that involved 15,719 nationally-representative teacher and school principal respondents.  These educators answered questions about the importance and value of SEL in schools, how they were promoting and measuring SEL, and how they thought SEL approaches could be improved.

   Based on these reports and our research and analysis, we discussed six significant flaws in the SEL framework advocated by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). 
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   The School Safety and Bullying Reports included the following:

·       Report 1. Published by YouthTruth, Learning from Student Voice: Bullying Today analyzed survey responses from students during the 2015-16, 2016-17, and 2017-18 school years regarding their experiences with school climate and safety. 

·       Report 2. Published by Comparitech, this report discussed a survey on student bullying completed by over 1,000 parents.

   A primary implication of these Reports was a strong recommendation that all districts and schools analyze the discipline, school climate, and classroom management data from this past school year. . . NOW. . . to determine (a) their current student, staff, and school status; (b) what was accomplished (or not) in these important areas; (c) the school’s “return on investment” relative to, for example, their SEL or PBIS program(s); and (d) what situations need to be address for the coming school year.

   To assist here, we identified a series of analyses and questions that schools can use to evaluate the discipline data from their student information or data management systems.

   Based on the result of these analyses, we then recommended that school administrators and other leaders select one or two targets to address on the first day of the new school year, and begin the planning and preparation process.
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   In Part II of this Blog Series, and based on the Reports above, we want to especially address the school bullying and cyberbullying problem in (and outside of) our schools.

   To do this, we will introduce our Special Situation Analysis process, and apply it to analyzing and developing systemic interventions for school bullying.  The hope is that schools will use this process now to develop and implement “prevention and early response” approaches. . . for immediate roll-out on the first day of the new school year.

   In Part III of this Series, we will use the Special Situation Analysis process to address cafeteria and bus situations.
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The Need and Components of a Special Situations Analysis

   When students exhibit inappropriate behavior in the Common Areas of a school (e.g., the hallway, bathroom, buses, playground, or cafeteria), or anti-social behavior with their peers (e.g., teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, hazing, or physical aggression/fighting), there are a number of complex individual, small group, large group, and even environmentally-relevant psychological processes in play.  When there are problems in these areas, school leaders (and relevant members of their School Discipline and/or Behavioral Mental Health teams) need to systematically analyze these processes—in an objective, data-based way—to determine the root causes of the problems.  The results of these analyses can then be linked to strategic or intensive interventions to decrease and eliminate the problems—replacing them with appropriate student, staff, and school interactions and related processes.

   Thus, we are recommending a data-based problem-solving process to comprehensively (and effectively) address existing, persistent, and/or significant Common School Area or Peer-Related Antisocial Behavior problems.  Given the complexity of the “processes in play” (as above), we call this data-based process a “Special Situation Analysis.”

   To demonstrate the complex processes present, note that the Common Areas in a school often have:

·       A larger number of multi-aged students (than in a classroom) who are in closer proximity to each other;
·       A larger student-to-staff ratio (resulting in less adult supervision, and, sometimes, supervision by paraprofessionals who are less-respected by some students);
·       A physical lay-out that is different than a classroom with space that is often larger (e.g., a cafeteria, the playground) and with physical boundaries that are less defined; and
·       A climate that includes more noise, higher (physical) energy levels, and more external stimulation.

   Relative to the complexity of Peer-Related Antisocial interactions, note that student-to-student teasing or bullying (for example) often:

·       Occur in the Common Areas of a school (hence, the remaining characteristics below are interfaced with the Common Area characteristics above);
·       Include one or more student aggressors, some of whom are teased or bullied by other peers, and are “passing the aggression” along;
·       Include one or more student targets, some of whom lack critical social skills which either set them up as targets or undermine their ability to appropriately handle the situation—so it does not reoccur;
·       Include one or more by-standing students whose inaction (when that occurs) serves to inadvertently reinforce the aggressors’ teasing or bullying;
·       Include no adults near the incidents, or adults who observe the incidents and do not intervene (for various reasons); and, in summary,
·       Involve clear goals or intents on the part of the aggressors who, in the absence of timely and meaningful consequences, are empowered and reinforced by their anti-social acts.
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The Components of a Special Situation Analysis

   Given the ecological nature of behavioral problems in the Common Areas of a school or as related to Peer-to-Peer Antisocial interactions, the Special Situation Analysis must be similarly ecological in nature.  This is because the root causes of the problem could exist in any one (or a combination) of the ecological components.

   Thus, like the detective in a murder case, the analysis begins by (a) identifying and functionally describing what appear to be the essential problems; and (b) systematically evaluating the characteristics and interactions within each of the components. 

   Then, as the data and analytic results include or exclude the involvement of specific components, the interdependencies of the remaining components are re-analyzed to objectively and validly reveal—as much as possible—the root causes of the existing problem.

   There are six components in a Special Situation Analysis.  They are completely described in the Full Blog Message in the context of bullying that is occurring in a Common School Area. 

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Message’s Description of the Six Components of a Special Situation Analysis]

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End of the School Year Special Situation Analyses

   As discussed above, a Special Situation Analysis begins by (a) identifying and functionally describing what appear to be the essential problems; and (b) systematically evaluating the characteristics and interactions within each of the components.  Then, as the data and analytic results include or exclude the involvement of specific components, the interdependencies of the remaining components are re-analyzed to objectively and validly reveal—as much as possible—the root causes of the existing problem.

   After this, the Special Situation Analysis links assessment to intervention to evaluation.

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Message’s Description of the Remainder of a Special Situation Analysis’s data-based problem-solving process.]

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Back to the Future

   In going back to the original theme of this Blog Series, if administrators and school leaders—who have analyzed their end-of-year discipline data—identify trends or results that implicate a Common School Area and/or Peer-Related Antisocial Interactions. . .

   We strongly encourage that they complete a Special Situation Analysis now, that they develop their Action Plan soon, and that they work toward implementing that Action Plan on the first day of the new school year.

   To accomplish this, the administrators and school leaders probably need to focus on only one Special Situation, and they will need to select one where the Special Situation process has a high probability of being successfully implemented at the beginning of the school year.

   The ultimate point here is that, without attention and intervention, a “true” Special Situation at the end of one school year is likely to re-emerge and continue starting at the beginning of the new year.

   Based on well-analyzed data, the summer is a perfect time to “knock one Special Situation out of the ballpark”—that is, to move in a strategic and concerted way to address (if not eliminate) one Special Situation from “re-emerging and continuing” into the next year.  Hopefully, this can then create the momentum needed for other situations to also be address. . . resulting in a cumulative effect that improves the safety and climate of the school, and the prosocial interactions of the students and staff.
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A Special Note about Cyberbullying

   Toward the beginning of Part I of this Blog Series, I described a recent consultation where I was helping three urban high schools to analyze their end-of-year discipline data and analyses.  During one conversation, it became apparent that the schools were reactively dealing with almost-daily “cyber-dramas” that were escalating into classroom disruptions, peer conflicts, and innumerable fights.  These situations were not only were negatively impacting school safety and climate, but they were necessitating time-consuming threat analyses, crisis-containment “Code Blues,” and post-incident interviews and debriefings.

   All of this was dominating the time of administrators, counselors, social workers, and school psychologists.  In fact, on some days, it was nearly impossible for these professionals to have a meeting. . . as one student “blow-up” after another created a series of constant interruptions.

   And all of this was residually impacting other students and many classroom teachers.

   As we completed our Special Situation, the Leadership Team realized that its Social and Emotional Learning program was not having “real-life” impact.  That is, it looked great on paper, but the time, staff, and process was not producing a social, emotional, or behavioral “return on investment.”  We are now in the Action Planning stage of the process with a hope that we will have definitive actions to implement on the first day of the new school year.

   Part of the Action Planning process has included a comprehensive understanding of how cyberbullying is part of the existing cyber-drama. 

[CLICK HERE for the Full Blog Message’s Discussion of Cyberbullying, and What Schools Need to Prepare and Implement at the Beginning of the New School Year in this Area.]
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Summary

   The discussion in Part I of this Blog Series focused on encouraging schools to evaluate their Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS), or school safety and discipline systems and outcomes from the school year that is now ending.

   Initially, we created a context to help schools to evaluate (with a goal of improving) their SEL programs by reviewing a number of recent national reports that surveyed educators about students’ behavioral problems in their schools, and other reports suggesting that bullying (including cyberbullying) is increasing in our schools nationwide.

   We then recommended that schools analyze their discipline data now so that they can identify large-scale school problems that have consumed significant amounts of staff time this past year. 

   To assist here, we identified a series of analyses and questions that schools can use to evaluate this year’s discipline data from their student information or data management systems.

   In this Part II of the Series, we described our Special Situation Analysis process, and applied it to analyzing and developing systemic interventions for school bullying.  The hope is that schools will use this process to develop and implement “prevention and early response” approaches now . . . for immediate roll-out on the first day of the new school year.

   In the upcoming Part III of this Series, we will use the Special Situation Analysis process to address cafeteria and bus situations.
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   I hope that the information in this Series has been useful to you.  As always, I look forward to your thoughts and comments. 

   Please know that, even during the Summer, I am still available to provide a free hour of telephone consultation to those who want to discuss their student, school, and/or district needs. 

   Feel free to contact me at any time if there is anything that I can do to support your work.

Best,

Howie