Report page 148

Which person or group is most likely to make the initial decision about how to respond to this student’s behavior?

Below is a list containing a wide variety of options schools can use to respond to concerning student behaviors, depending on their seriousness. Most incidents would involve only a subset of these options. What action(s) would this person or group at your school likely take or recommend in response to this student’s behavior?

Would the BTAM team(s) serving your school be made aware of this student’s behavior?

The follow-up questions were tailored depending on the school’s situation. For example, schools that reported not having a BTAM team did not receive the third question asking whether their BTAM team would be made aware of the incident.

The personnel (e.g., nurses, social workers, school-based law enforcement) that respondents saw who might respond to an incident reflected only those personnel that respondents said they had at their school.

Table B.1 lists the 16 scenarios used in the survey. All scenarios were randomly assigned.

As shown in Figure B.1, the respondents on the BTAM-intensive survey pathway received three scenarios, while those on the shorter survey pathway received five scenarios.

The scenarios were designed to include a mix of things, including severity of the incident (low, medium, or high) and student populations affected (e.g., special education student, general education student).

Low-severity scenarios described incidents in which BTAM teams likely should not be involved (e.g., low-level discipline incidents, such as classroom misbehavior).

High-severity scenarios described incidents in which BTAM teams definitely should be involved, such as students making direct threats to themselves or others.

Medium-severity scenarios were designed to describe borderline cases, in which schools might have more discretion over whether BTAM teams can or should be involved.

All respondents received one low-severity scenario and one high-severity scenario. Most respondents then received one medium-severity scenario, although some respondents received three.

Respondents saw their scenarios (and the associated follow-up questions) in a random order.

The scenarios were scaled to the grade level of students in the schools that principals reported serving.

Principals were first categorized into school grade levels based on their reports of the grade levels of students their schools served in that school year.

Principals were categorized as primarily serving middle grades if their school contained grades 7 or 8.

Principals were categorized as serving primarily elementary grades if their school contained any grades from kindergarten through 6.

Principals were categorized as serving primarily high school grades if their school contained any grades from 9 through 12.

If principals were in a school that served both elementary and high school grades, they were randomly assigned to be elementary or high.

Principals in schools serving mostly elementary grades were assigned the elementary scenarios, while principals in schools serving mostly middle or high school grades were assigned the secondary scenarios.

This was to ensure that respondents received scenarios that felt more plausible for the type of incidents their schools might actually encounter in their jobs.