Early warning indicator and intervention systems (EWS) have been promoted to identify students at risk of school underperformance or dropout. Current EWS systems typically include administrative data on attendance, behavior incidents requiring disciplinary action, and course performance. This study tested whether specific emotional and behavioral…

Previous research identifies the negative outcomes associated with behavioral and emotional risk (BER) and experiences of trauma in childhood. Studies have shown that elevated BER and experiences of trauma are connected to poor academic performance, as well as other maladaptive behavioral outcomes (Martinez et al., 2014; Perfect et al., 2016; Ray…

Unaddressed social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) needs and academic challenges may lead to negative youth outcomes. Universal behavioral risk screeners, like the student self-report Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener (SAEBRS-SRS), identify at-risk students. To improve screening tool use, research is needed to identify the…

We report findings of this replication study, examining the internalizing subscale (SRSS-I4) of the revised version of the Student Risk Screening Scale for Internalizing and Externalizing behavior (SRSS-IE 9) and the internalizing subscale of the Teacher Report Form (TRF). Using the sample from 13 elementary schools across three U.S. states with…

This study was an initial psychometric investigation of the Universal Behavior Screener (UBS), a nine-item screening measure developed by psychologists within the Hawai'i Department of Education (HIDOE) to identify elementary school youth at risk for social, emotional, and behavioral concerns. Data from nine teachers reporting on 230 students at…

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, PK-12 school buildings across the United States closed and educators quickly pivoted to remote and continuous learning opportunities to protect students and society as a whole from the deadly coronavirus. As educational leaders navigate the complexities for providing instruction during the 2020-2021 academic…

Universal behavior screening is used in schools worldwide to detect students with and at risk for behavioral challenges. As schools prepare to implement screening, they face a major decision: which screening tool to use. Several scholars have published recommendations to support education leaders in selecting a screening assessment (Glover &…

Introduction: Leadership support has been identified as a key facilitator to successful implementation of school-based initiatives. School leadership contributions to student academic success and school reform have been documented, but less work has focused on the effects of leadership on school mental health initiatives such as social, emotional,…

In this article, we examined predictive validity of the newly defined "Student Risk Screening Scale--Internalizing and Externalizing" (SRSS-IE 9, with nine items) when used by teachers for the first time, with a sample of 24,535 elementary students from 74 schools in four U.S. geographic regions. Results indicated fall externalizing and…

We report the results of a convergent validity study examining the externalizing subscale (SRSS-E5, five items) of the adapted Student Risk Screening Scale for Internalizing and Externalizing (SRSS-IE 9) with the externalizing subscale of the Teacher Report Form (TRF) with two samples of K-12 students. Results of logistic regression and receiver…

Introduction: We report predictive validity of the newly defined Student Risk Screening Scale -- Internalizing and Externalizing (SRSS-IE 9, with 9 items) when used for the first time by middle and high school teachers from 43 schools. Methods: The sample included 11,773 middle school-aged students representing four geographic regions, and 7,244…

There is an urgent need to aid in what will be an ongoing educational recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. One avenue for supporting students with and at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders (e.g., internalizing and externalizing behaviors) is implementation of tiered systems, which emphasize evidence-based practices to prevent…

School-age children are at high risk of experiencing traumatic and stressful events that can negatively impact their academic, emotional, and behavior performance. Students that have been exposed to a traumatic and adverse experience present with high rates of dropout, low academic performance, conduct problems, aggression, depression, and…

The purpose of this commentary is to discuss articles in the special issue focused on improving procedures for universal screening for social-emotional and behavioral problems. Based on work by Hunsley and Mash (2007), we examine factors to consider for those seeking to establish evidence-based behavioral screening practices in school settings.…

Through this study we compared different informants and different behavior screening tools that are available to screen for behavioral and emotional risk. We examined screening results from 100 students from a high school with a high achiever's magnet program in the Southeastern United States (school demographics: 71% female and 79% black,…