Feb 27, 2005 5 min read

WELLSBURG, W.Va. (AP) – On the first day of school last August, incoming freshmen at Brooke County High School were shown their lockers and classrooms and herded into a cafeteria for a rundown of do’s and don’ts, including behavior expectations. “Our purpose is to reward positive behavior,” Assistant Principal Ken Hart told the students slumped in their chairs. “Hopefully, we can correct negative behavior as well.”

For the past three years, the high school has been rewarding its students with “gotcha” awards for being prepared, striving to do their best and showing and giving respect to fellow students and also teachers.

The program has been so successful, it was expanded this year to all 11 schools in the Northern Panhandle county. Brooke is the first of West Virginia’s 55 county school systems to use the concept of positive behavior support countywide.

The concept is simple: Prevent problems by encouraging good behavior instead of solely punishing the bad.

As the U.S. Department of Education gathers information on “persistently dangerous schools” under federal No Child Left Behind standards, education discipline experts tout positive behavior support as the best way to address school violence.

It has been gaining popularity nationwide as educators realize the practice of zero tolerance isn’t very effective and tends to discriminate against minorities and low-performing students.

“It’s kind of the gold standard for the field right now,” said Don Kincaid, associate professor at the University of South Florida and director of Florida’s Positive Behavior Support Project.

“It’s what schools should be doing.”

The positive disciplinary concept has been used for decades to improve the behavior of individual special education students.

Because it works best if every adult in a school works together, the next step was to apply it to entire schools and districts.

The University of Oregon’s Center for Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support has received about $7.5 million in federal education funds over the past six years to help 3,000 schools and districts in 30 states implement a positive behavior support program.

Schools that have completely implemented the program report up to a 60 percent reduction in school violence, according to George Sugai, a professor of special education at the center.

West Virginia began using the program to help individual students in 1991, and expanded it schoolwide a decade later. More than 200 West Virginia schools now use some form of positive behavior support.

While before-and-after discipline statistics are still being gathered statewide and for Brooke County, Grandview Elementary in Kanawha County reports discipline referrals to its principal have dropped from 250 in 2000-01, the program’s first year, to 79 last year.

And the type of referrals has changed from fights and classroom disruptions to playground horseplay that goes too far, said Principal Sherrie Davis.

Fights have almost disappeared.

“It’s all about expectations,” said Davis, whose school serves 242 students in preschool through fifth grade.

Grandview’s expectations are “expect to do your best, act appropriately, give and earn respect, listen and learn.” Students can earn an award, usually a pencil and an announcement over the school intercom.

In most elementary schools, about 20 percent of students will not respond to a behavioral program without additional intervention by counselors, social workers or special education teachers, Sugai said.

Because schools are dealing with fewer problems, they can concentrate more help on those children.

The program is not just for high-poverty schools in tough neighborhoods. While 76 percent of Grandview’s children are eligible for free and reduced-price school lunches, a poverty measure, only 27.44 of Brooke County High School students qualify.

Despite its success, the positive reinforcement program has not replaced zero tolerance, which applies tough punishment to both severe and minor behavior.

Most researchers say zero tolerance doesn’t work and isn’t fair. And there is a high rate of repeat offenses among students who are suspended – so it’s not a deterrent, said Russ Skiba, a professor at Indiana University who researches school discipline for the Center for Education and Evaluation Policy.

“We see a very consistent overrepresentation of minority students, especially African-Americans, in the use of suspension and expulsion,” Skiba said. Black students also tend to get harsher punishments for less serious behavior, he added.

Both disciplinary concepts should be used in unison, said Bill Bond of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Bond was principal of Heath High School in Paducah, Ky., when a freshman student there killed three girls and wounded five other students on Dec. 1, 1997.

“The more you reinforce positive behavior the more positive behavior you are going to get,” he said.

But, “You have to be negative at times and you have to be consistently negative when there is a certain behavior you are trying to eliminate. You can’t ignore it and think it will go away.”

Nationally, violent crimes involving students ages 12-18 dropped from about 1.15 million in 1992 to 658,600 in 2002, a 43 percent decline, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

In West Virginia schools, there were 702 crimes in the 2003-04 school year, according to the state Department of Education. The incidents included assault, drug and weapon possession or use and felony-type crimes.

By using positive behavior support in every school, Brooke County administrators hope to teach children responsibility and manners early so middle schools and high schools have fewer discipline problems, said Everett Mace, the county’s director of special education and staff development.

Teachers at Brooke County High regularly send postcards to parents when students do something outstanding.

“When we get stuff sent home from school, it’s normally a report card or a detention slip,” said senior student Hannah Jackson, who helped design the school’s program.

“Now that’s something we can look forward to getting in the mail.”