Posted on September 14, 2021
Categories: school climate & support, system trends

This report examines changes in school-wide outcomes from 2014-15 to 2018-19 for schools that first implemented PBIS in 2014-15 and similar non-PBIS schools. The school-wide outcomes include data on attendance, suspensions, violent and serious incidents, sense of belonging and school safety, and ELA and Math PSSA performance. Overall patterns reveal that, in general, PBIS schools did not differ from non-PBIS schools in our sample on 2018-19 school-wide outcomes.

Key findings include:

  • The percentage of students attending 95% or more days and the percentage of students with zero suspensions both increased at PBIS schools between 2014-15 and 2018-19. However, PBIS and non-PBIS schools in the study sample followed the same patterns for most school-wide outcomes.
  • Overall, the violent incident rate and number of serious incidents decreased in PBIS schools more than in non-PBIS schools from 2014-15 to 2018-19.
  • There was a decrease in the sense of belonging and school safety sub-construct District-Wide Survey scores among both the PBIS schools and the non-PBIS schools in the study sample.
  • PBIS schools had slightly larger gains than non-PBIS schools on PSSA performance over time, although student performance at both PBIS and non-PBIS schools increased over time.