Introduction:

Educational Resource Services was organized in 1992 to offer a wide range of training programs and educational products for educators and school districts. Educational Resource Services™ staff of psychologists focuses on areas of classroom behavior management, school dropout prevention, responding to despondent students, teaching autism spectrum students, and using differentiated learning skills. Educational forms available through Educational Resource Services include best practices for using Functional Behavioral Analysis, Behavioral Intervention Plans, and the Educational Performance Report. All of these products meet the standards set forth by IDEA '97 & 2004 and No Child Left Behind legislation. In addition, Educational Resource Services offers a variety of books and videos that have been written and/or produced by the staff.

Mission Statement:

Educational Resource Services is committed to providing the highest quality and meaningful in-service training, consultative services and educational products to schools and school districts throughout the United States and Canada. Members of Educational Resource Services view our work much like a ministry. Our mission is to inform and inspire educators to achieve greatness through their students. This will require an attitude of excellence.

Core Beliefs:

We at Educational Resource Services believe that teachers and students are a school district’s greatest resource. We know that teachers have entered the field of education because of sincere interest helping students achieve. While teachers are professional in their endeavors, for a variety of reasons they have been burned out and in many cases their profession is no more than a job. Once they enter the classroom teachers quickly learn that educating students is most often not about teaching, it is about managing the behavior inside the classroom. Sadly, most teachers have never taken course work in classroom behavior management. It is our view that with the assistance of Educational Resource Services teachers can become effective educators, changing the lives of students, academically, emotionally, socially, and even morally.

School Dropout Prevention Program

Content of this Folio

1. Description of program
2. The presentation material to be presented to the Leadership Team
3. A needs assessment to be conducted
4. A template for writing the plan
5. Structured analysis and data collection information

Our goal is to help each school establish a system that supports implementation of evidence-based practices and procedures, and will be part of on-going school reform efforts. This approach focuses on the interactive and self-checking process of organizational correction and improvement around four key elements:

• Outcomes: academic and behavior targets that are endorsed and emphasized by students, families, and educators.
• Practices: interventions and strategies that are evidence based.
• Data: information that is used to identify status, need for change, and effects of interventions.
• Systems: supports that are needed to enable the accurate and durable implementation of school-wide practices to manage school dropout.

We consider multiple points of support:

• Individual Student: intensive and individualized intervention planning based on function-based behavior assessments and implementation for students who are unresponsive to school-wide (primary) interventions (about 20% of students).
• Classroom: expectations, routines, structures, and practices for presenting curriculum, designing instruction, and managing social climate of classroom environments that serves as the basis for individual student behavior support planning.
• School-wide: expectations and supports (i.e., proactive discipline) for all students and staff, across all school settings that together serve as the foundation for classroom and individual student behavior support.
• Community: collaborative intervention and support efforts for students and their families. We also involve mental health, public health, juvenile justice, and other community agencies and resources.

• The leadership team must be representative of the school, parents, business and social community.
• Specify questions and needs which assessment data will help to answer or address.
• Identify existing behavior-related data (e.g., suspension/expulsions, behavior incidents, discipline referrals, attendance, achievement scores, drop-out rates, level's of poverty).
• Specify how self-assessment and other information will be collected, summarized, and used in decision making and action planning.
• Analyze and summarize data relative to evaluation question or need.
• Specify desired outcome or objective based on analysis of data.
• Consider and integrate with existing behavior-related efforts, initiatives, and/or programs that might have similar desired outcomes or objectives.
• Select evidence-based practice that is likely to produce desired outcome and achieve objective.
• Prepare site (e.g., people, resources) for accurate and sustained implementation of the practice.
• Implement practice and monitor accuracy or fidelity of implementation.
• Collect data continuously to evaluate progress toward objective or outcome and make adjustments to maximize outcomes.

1. Establish a visible, effective, efficient, and functional leadership team.
2. Review existing information/data.
3. Analyze, describe, and prioritize issue within context.
4. Specify measurable outcome that is related directly to issue and context.
5. Select evidence-based practice to achieve specified outcome.
6. Provide supports for accurate sustained adoption and implementation of practice.
7. Monitor practice implementation and progress toward outcome.
8. Modify practice implementation based on analysis of progress data.

1. Prevention refers to organizing learning and teaching environments to prevent the (a) development of new problem behaviors, (b) worsening of existing problem behaviors, and (c) triggering of problem behavior. Prevention is characterized by an emphasis on directly teaching, actively monitoring, and positively reinforcing pro-social or adapted behaviors.
2. Whole school refers to addressing the needs of all members (e.g., students, staff, family members and ancillary staff) and all settings of a school community.
3. Evidence-based practices refers to interventions, strategies, and techniques that have empirical evidence of their effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, and durability. See below.
4. Leadership Team refers to working as a cohesive, integrated, and representative collection of individuals who lead the systems change and implementation process.
5. Evaluation refers to the regular and systematic self-assessment of strengths and needs, and the continuous self-improvement action planning process.

1. Is the practice effective?
   What is the likelihood that the desired effects or outcomes will be achieved with the practice in this particular school?
2. Is the practice efficient?
   What are the costs/benefits of adopting and sustaining the practice in this particular school?
3. Is the practice relevant?
   Does a contextual fit exist among the practice, the individuals in the school who will use the practice, and setting or culture of the school in which the practice will be used?

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The single most common request for assistance from teachers is related to behavior and classroom management (Elam, Rose, & Gallup, 1999). School environments must be maximized to allow students to participate, contribute, and succeed in school, at home and in the community. Areas of focus in school are:

Student behavior problems and various socio-economic issues have a direct impact on school dropout:

• Differences between individual students and teachers can make classrooms difficult to manage resulting in a lack of interest or suspensions.
• Multiple goals and methods overlap and compete within schools.
• Classes may be meaningless to students.
• School policies tend to be reactive and controlling and must become proactive and supportive.
• School organizational structures and processes may be inefficient and ineffective to sustain school attendance.
• Public demand is at an all-time high for greater academic accountability and achievement.
• Occurrences of behaviors leading to school dropout are more severe and complex than in the past.
• The capacity to identify students with special needs and disabilities is often limited.
• Role models outside of school are often viewed as violent and antisocial, e.g. music, television, glorification of gangs.

Schools often respond to these challenges by relying on aversive and exclusionary consequences (increasing their use of verbal reprimands, in school detention and out-of-school suspensions, etc.). If behavior does not improve, reactive responses are increased by establishing zero tolerance policies, increasing surveillance, posting security personnel, and excluding students from school.

Schools must shift from a reactive and aversive approach to a preventive and positive approach.

• Work for and with every student, since every student in school needs support.
• Give priority to empirically validated procedures and systems that have demonstrated effectiveness, efficiency, and relevance (See Attached Program).
• Integrate academic and behavioral success for all students.
• Emphasize prevention in establishing and maintaining safe and supportive school climates.
• Expand the use of effective practices and systems throughout the school and where possible, to the community, school district, and state levels.
• Increase collaboration among multiple community support systems including families and community mental health resources to medical care and the juvenile justice system.
• Build a school environment where team building and problem solving skills are expected, taught, and reinforced.

A school dropout prevention plan should be a series of systemic and individualized strategies for achieving important social and learning outcomes while preventing students from moving into a critical stage where dropping out of school is viewed as a viable option. While this approach is a specific model, it is also a compilation of effective practices, interventions, and systems change strategies that have a long history of empirical support and development and individually have been demonstrated to be empirically effective and efficient, personalized for each school environment. The goal is to create a school climate that meets the needs of all students in schools, not just students with disabilities.

To give schools the best opportunity to efficiently organize scarce resources and support the adoption of effective practices, Educational Resource Services and the Regional Service Center integrates:

• Operationally defined and valued outcomes,
• Behavioral and biomedical science (Behavior: is learned and can be taught, is lawful and predictable, occurrences are affected by environmental factors that interact with biophysical characteristics of the individual, data collection and use for active decision-making are important for continuous intervention, program, and system improvement.)
• Research-validated practices, and
• Systems change to reduce continued dropout behaviors while enhancing the broad quality with which all students are living/learning.

• Must be implemented with high accuracy if maximum effects are to be realized
• Practices and systems must be durable if meaningful change and improvement are to be realized
• Effective practices and systems must be sustained for several years if schools are to expand their efforts and maximize their effectiveness
• Implementation must be delivered by school personnel and those directly involved in the education of students
• Data on student outcomes must be used to make decisions for continued adaptation and sustained implementation
• Procedures must be customized for the culture, structure, and needs of the individual school
• The system must support functional, doable, and durable implementation of effective practices

Typically, when schools encounter a problem that cannot be solved by existing strategies and resources, an expert is approached to provide technical assistance and training. An event is created to allow the expert to share and teach about ways to address the problem. The expert leaves, and the school is expected to implement the strategy. This train-and-hope method (Stokes and Baer, 1997) follows this path:

Expert Model for Problem Solving
Stage #1	Difficult-to-solve problem is encountered.
Stage #2	Expert is identified to provide a solution.
Stage #3	Expert provides or trains the solution.
Stage #4	Expert leaves and expects school to implement the solution.
Stage #5	Lacking supports and capacity, solution is not implemented effectively.
Stage #6	School waits for next problem to occur ("expert model" reinforced).

Educational Resource Services and the Regional Service Center focuses on what system supports (e.g., resources, training, policies) are needed to enable the initial accurate use of the practice, continued use of the practice over time, expanded use of the practice to other contexts, and modification of the practice to maximize outcomes and increase efficiency.

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