Planning to Change Student Behaviors in a Small City School District - A Case Study of Managing in the Effective Change Zone

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dabgoudw

This article presents a retrospective case study of an urban school district in the U.S. Northeast that improved student behavior through a three-year, federally funded program. The approach integrated positive behavior activities and strategies with expanded character education in the curriculum. District planning and implementation emphasized high-touch change management within the “effective change zone.” Results were strong, illustrating how structured PBIS-based planning and evaluation can produce meaningful and sustaining outcomes.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Program Implementation History – Year 1

Program Implementation History – Year 2

Planning to Change Student Behaviors in a Small City School District: A Case Study of Managing in the Effective Change Zone Michael F. Lewis Walter S. Polka ABSTRACT This article is a retrospective analysis of successful planning processes implemented inan urban school district in the Northeast United States to improve student behavior by incorporating positive behavior activities and strategies as well as infusing more specific character education into the curriculum. The results after three years of planning, implementing, and evaluating the program funded via a federal grant have been impressive. The planning and implementation approaches employed by the district for this program are consistent with those key “high-touch” approaches advocated by contemporary educational researchers and categorized in the planning literature as “managing in the effective change zone”. Thus, this paper provides a case study of managing change in the “effective change zone” to promote meaningful and sustaining results. INTRODUCTION Urban school districts typically face a plethora of non-academic concerns that directly impact the achievement of students. In many cases, negative behavior of the student within the school or classroom has a doubly negative effect of preventing personal learning and the learning of others. School discipline, which has traditionally focused on a punitive model of punishment for wrongdoing (March, Hawken, & Green, 2003) has not been found to be particularly effective as punitive measures have been found to contribute to negative behavior and school environments which are considered unsafe and hostile (Mayer, 1995) . The faculty and administration of this relatively small urban school district, PreK-12 student population of approximately 7,500, identified negative behavior as a major barrier to student learning. Upon initial exploration, district stakeholders identified a lack of behavior and character education “curriculum” as a barrier to improving student behavior and resultant academic performance. A proactive and preventative approach to addressing student behavior was desired. As research regarding appropriate interventions for this particular concern progressed a combined ‘positive-behavior/character education’ model was initiated. Based on available research (Walker, Colvin, & Ramsey, 1995; Nelson, Colvin,& Smith, 1996), there was strong support for the use of a Positive Behavior Interventionsand Supports (PBIS) model to effect change in the district. The grant for which the district applied was solely for the purpose of improving individual student behavior from a 3-tiered PBIS model (Lewis & Sugai, 1999) that aimed at addressing the positive teaching and reinforcement of behavior across school-wide, classroom, and individual situations. Program Implementation History – Year 1 Upon being awarded a federal grant the school district began the planning and program design phase of implementation. The entire 1st year of the program was directed toward allowing staff, administrators, and other stakeholders meaningful amounts of time to design, develop, and articulate program goals, policy, and procedures. This meaningful amount of time allowed for the essential “buy-in” among program originators as well as Educational Planning 4 Vol. 21, No. 2 staff members and school personnel that were not directly responsible for program development and/or the dissemination of program details. Year 1 resulted in over 100 hours of professional time spent developing universal district matrices for what appropriate positive behavior and character education program would“look like” as implemented. It also provided for individual schools to consider their own school culture and create a series of recommendations and modifications to the universal system that would facilitate increased acceptance and implementation of the program. A non-exhaustive list of products developed from the year of planning included:

FAQs

What was the program’s main goal in improving student behavior?

It aimed to improve individual student behavior using a three-tiered PBIS model while strengthening positive behavior and character education across school-wide, classroom, and individual contexts.

How did Year 1 support successful implementation?

Year 1 focused on planning and program design, giving staff and stakeholders time to develop goals, policies, and procedures to build program buy-in, and to create universal behavioral matrices and related instructional resources.

What kinds of data were used to evaluate the program by Year 2?

The district collected measures including office referrals, student suspensions, violent and disruptive incidents, and surveys capturing staff and student perceptions of the school as a caring community.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dabgoudw