Impact of School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) Focusing on Staff Perceptions and Student Behaviors

School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) is a framework that has been proven to be effective at elementary and secondary schools through ongoing research. The researched middle school educates students grades 6-8 and is located in Western Pennsylvania. The middle school reintroduced their SWPBIS PRIDE program back to its staff and students during the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year after a COVID-19 hiatus. Managing student behaviors was a difficult task post the COVID-19 shutdown. The middle school wanted to provide students and staff with a positive reward system for following expectations versus only relying on punitive practices to address negative student behaviors. This mixed methods research is focused on analyzing staff perceptions in conjunction with out-of-school suspensions (OSS) and SWPBIS data to understand the SWPBIS program's effectiveness and sustainability. The research compared quantitative and qualitative data focused on the 2021-2022 and the 2022-2023 school year. Results indicated that the SWPBIS rewards had no impact on improving students receiving OSS. The SWPBIS program itself did not improve the OSS numbers at the middle school. Finally, the middle school staffs perception of the SWPBIS program improved from year one to year two of implementation. Findings from this action research will be utilized to improve the researched SWPBIS program, as well as other schools who currently implement a SWPBIS program.