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Aspects of School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports that Predict School Climate in Urban Settings

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Abstract

Positive school climates are associated with numerous benefits for students and school staff. Although there is some evidence that the implementation of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SWPBIS) impacts features of school climate, such as organizational health, the specific aspects of SWPBIS that contribute to climate have yet to be investigated. In this study, we examined how different components of SWPBIS predicted 490 school staff members’ perceptions of school climate. After controlling for race and time in the profession, aspects of staff members’ school climate perceptions were positively predicted by the teaching of behavioral expectations and having well-defined corrective consequence systems, and they were negatively predicted by district support for the SWPBIS initiative and having strong school-wide reward systems. These results have implications for which components of SWPBIS schools should prioritize for training and development to have the strongest impact on their staff members’ perceptions of school climate.

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Acknowledgements

Bridget V. Dever, PhD, College of Education, Lehigh University, is acknowledged for her part in supporting and advising the statistical analyses.

Funding

This research was supported in part by funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) award number 5R01HD073430.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Effective Schools, Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health, Villanova, PA, USA

    Laura E. Rutherford

  2. Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA

    Bridget O. Hier

  3. Department of School Psychology, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Barry L. McCurdy

  4. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Jennifer A. Mautone & Ricardo Eiraldi

  5. Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Jennifer A. Mautone & Ricardo Eiraldi

Authors
  1. Laura E. Rutherford
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  2. Bridget O. Hier
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  3. Barry L. McCurdy
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  4. Jennifer A. Mautone
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  5. Ricardo Eiraldi
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design, as well as to material preparation and data collection. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Laura E. Rutherford, Bridget O. Hier, and Barry L. McCurdy, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Laura E. Rutherford.

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Ethics Approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by Devereux’s Institutional Review Board.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Conflict of Interest

Laura E. Rutherford, Bridget O. Hier, and Barry L. McCurdy received consultant fees from the participating school district.

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Rutherford, L.E., Hier, B.O., McCurdy, B.L. et al. Aspects of School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports that Predict School Climate in Urban Settings. Contemp School Psychol 27, 534–544 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-022-00417-5

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