Disparities in school discipline based on student race and disability status remain a major barrier to achieving educational equity. In addition to systemic factors, research suggests that educators' racial and labeling biases may also be partially responsible for exacerbating these inequities. This article presents a novel mindfulness-based…

Targeted Tier 2 interventions are critical to supporting students with challenging behavior and decreasing the resources associated with highly individualized and intense interventions. This study extends findings from recent single-case design studies and case example applications of the Tier 2 Identification and Intervention framework with the…

Educators have shown reluctance to implement interventions aimed at improving racial equity in school disciplinary practice. Mixed methods were applied to assess and improve the acceptability of a new intervention designed to reduce racial disparities in school discipline. A descriptive concurrent parallel design was used to assess U.S. educators'…

Epidemiologic research suggests a gap between prevalence estimates of students with emotional or behavioral problems and the actual number of students identified under the federal category of emotional disturbance (ED). To better understand issues related to the identification gap, we investigated the academic and behavioral functioning,…

This document provides recommendations of the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders (CCBD) regarding the use of seclusion in schools. It updates the CCBD's position on this topic first published in 2009 and includes (a) key definitions, (b) a summary of problems with the use of seclusion, (c) strategies to eliminate the use of seclusion,…

Bullying continues to be a major concern in U.S. schools and is the focus of myriad prevention and intervention efforts. Researchers have recently cited school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) as a prevention framework for reducing school-based bullying. Therefore, we examined the effect of universal SWPBIS implemented…

Racial disparities in rates of exclusionary school discipline are well documented and seemingly intractable. However, emerging theories on implicit bias show promise in identifying effective interventions. In this study, we used school discipline data from 1,666 elementary schools and 483,686 office discipline referrals to identify specific…

Despite the prevalence of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) for addressing student behavior in public schools, little information exists on the extent and consistency of implementation efforts in secure juvenile justice (JJ) schools. Reports of fidelity to core PBIS processes and components are needed to determine the ubiquity…

Despite schools increasingly adopting multitiered systems of support (MTSS) for prevention and intervention of mental health concerns, many are slow to adopt universal mental health screening (UMHS), a core MTSS feature, due to concerns about their limited capacity to meet the needs of all identified. In this study, we examined differences in the…

This document provides policy recommendations of the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders regarding the use of seclusion procedures in schools. It includes (a) an introduction, (b) a declaration of principles, and (c) recommendations regarding the use of seclusion in school settings. Explanation or elaboration of policy recommendations…

A survey of 158 educators found that respondents tended to consider interventions that use physical pain or discomfort or social humiliation to be very aversive and tended to favor restricting the use of these interventions. Respondents viewed many other decelerative interventions as relatively mild aversives that they should be able to use.…

Since the reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; 1997) through the current reauthorization (IDEA 2004), disciplinary procedures and functional behavioral assessment (FBA) have been widely used in school districts to assist in the prevention and amelioration of problem behaviors. Although researchers have…

A survey of 144 educators examined their preference for positive versus negative interventions based on the amount of information provided about students with behavior problems. Although there was an overall preference for positive interventions, having an explanation of misbehavior did lead to the choice of more positive interventions. (Author/CR)

Analysis of data on discipline problems and suspensions at a large urban high school found a high frequency of disciplinary referrals and suspensions and poor correspondence between school disciplinary policy and disciplinary actions. Students with recurrent suspensions were found to be a very heterogeneous group. Implications for developing…

A study of 36 students (ages 12-17) with behavior/emotional disorders in a residential school examined the effects of three types of in-school suspension programs on disruptive classroom behavior and the impact of classroom management. Results found no apparent effects of the in-school suspension interventions on classroom disruptive behavior.…