EFFECTS OF POSITIVE BEHAVIOR INTERVENTIONS AND SUPPORTS ON MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT by Chad

Today’s teachers face more frequent and more severe challenges than perhaps any generation of teachers that have come before them. Administrators attempt to support teaching in an environment of ever-increasing accountability and dwindling financial resources with new and innovative strategies. One such strategy employed by modern educators has been the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) model for clear behavioral expectations and pyramids of intervention for targeted support for students. This study compared a middle school that employs PBIS with a middle school that does not, to determine if there was any statistical improvement realized on academic achievement. Two diverse middle schools with high numbers of low socioeconomic status students were studied. Eighth grade reading Standards of Learning assessment results were examined to determine what, if any, impact PBIS programs had on student achievement. The eighth grade reading scores were examined from the 20102011 school year, since this was the first year of implementation. The study results found that there was no statistically significant difference in achievement between the overall populations of the control school and the experimental school. The study also found that there was no statistically significant difference between male and female achievement at the control and experimental schools. The study did find that there was a statistically significant difference between Caucasian students at the control school and experimental school, as well as between minority students at the control school and experimental school.