Making Schools Safe

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to study how an intervention decreased violence, and created and maintained a positive school environment, and safe school building. Also, this investigation considered how an intervention impacted student learning and academic progress, and positive and appropriate student relating and problem solving among peers and with adults. A school-wide, prosocial behavior management system, The Project ACHIEVE Social Skills Program (Knoff, 2000), was used and the value of the program was determined using behavioral, observational, self-report, quantitative, and qualitative measures. Participants in the study were all school personnel, students in grades 3-6, and their parents/guardians in an elementary public school in an ethnically diverse school district. A similar elementary school in the district provided some comparison data. Pre- and post-intervention data suggested that the school-wide intervention was effective in improving prosocial behavior, in increasing students' appropriate and positive behavioral choices, in decreasing student disruptiveness in classrooms and common areas, and in decreasing disciplinary office referrals and suspensions. Implications of this field-based study are discussed in terms of applied school practice.

Key Words:

• Safe schools
• system-wide intervention
• prosocial behaviors
• violence prevention
• social skills
• bullying
• academic improvement