Critical School Policy Review

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the transformation of the current school behavior expectation and see how they correlate with the new suggested implementation of positive behavior interventions and support (PBIS) in a rural South Georgia school. This study intends to review the school's current discipline system and use these behavior expectations to convert them into a PBIS format. The goal of this study is to create a PBIS matrix and influence the current behavior expectation to a more PBIS school-wide behavior expectations. This research will take place in a middle school in rural South Georgia. The behavior matrix is implemented in a seventh-grade inclusion classroom. The make-up of the participants in the classroom includes seventeen boys and seven girls from age twelve to thirteen. Teachers currently use four behavior expectations set by the school. The teachers use trax cards to keep track of the undesired although the trax cards are an inconstant way to reinforce the behavior. These trax card mimic PBIS acknowledgment, but there is no system set in place for positive reinforcement. The dependent variable will be the behavior expectation for the classroom and how the teachers implement it. The independent variable will be the current behavior expectations. It is hypothesized that how the teachers handle the new PBIS school-wide behavior expectations will be consistent throughout grade levels and positive reinforcement will be measurable. Results will indicate a significant difference between current behavior expectation and the PBIS Matrixes.