The Effects of a SMART Goal and PBIS Implementation on Documented Behaviors in African American Students and Students with Special Needs

Abstract

Monitoring and managing student behavior is an ongoing struggle for teachers and support staff within schools, especially at the middle school level. Teachers are burdened with the struggle to educate children while at the same time disciplining students for behaviors that lead to referrals, suspensions, and expulsions. There is a significantly larger percentage of African American students and students with special needs who receive referrals, suspensions and expulsions because of their behavior.

At a midwest urban school district, the administration and staff developed and implemented a SMART goal to decrease the number of suspensions for African American students, and students with special needs by 5 percent. In three middle schools the schools also implemented PBIS (positive behavioral interventions and supports). This researcher studied if documented suspensions in the three middle schools decreased significantly from the 2011-2012 school year and compared it to the 2014-2015 school year. The researcher hypothesized that there would be a significant difference between the number of suspensions from the 2011-2012 school year to 2014-2015. When the data was analyzed using a single factor ANOVA test it was found that there was a significant difference between the school years studied. The researcher rejected all five null hypotheses that there would be no significant difference for both African Americans and students with special needs in suspension rates during this period and accepted the research hypotheses that a significant decrease in referrals occurred.