This demonstration brief provides teaching and learning stories from districts and schools implementing PBIS with an integrated systems focus and is organized across the following areas: (a) the context of the school/district, (b) the changes made in the systems, (c) the impact of the changes made in the systems, and (d) next steps to improve the…

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events occurring in the household or community that hold painful or distressing outcomes for children immediately and in their future (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). School counselors work with children and young adolescents suffering from negative mental health…

We describe challenges to measuring the type and quantity of mental health programs, practices, and resources that schools provide to students, as well as variation in these resources. We conducted interviews and surveys with school and district staff representing 55 middle and high schools in MetroWest Massachusetts with the goal of collecting…

Adolescent behavior now occurs offline and online. Frequently studied and treated independently, the relationship between offline problem behaviors and online risk taking is not well understood. This study asked whether there are any problematic behaviors predictive of online risk taking by high school students. Using a 2009 dataset of 2,077 high…

Healthcare services outside of school impact the likelihood of receiving a school-based special education classification and services. Using Massachusetts administrative data on public school students, this paper employs difference-in-differences to examine the impacts of expanded Medicaid coverage for mental and behavioral healthcare brought by…

An increasing number of high schools have adopted Tier 1 PBIS; however, implementation of advanced tiers of PBIS in high schools is less common and specific guidance is scarce. To address this need and better understand the level of support needed to successfully implement advanced tiers of PBIS at the high school level, the National Center on…

The school counseling profession has gone through tremendous growth and change since the early 1900s. New England can be proud of school counselors who are working differently from those in the past to support all students achieving their fullest potential. The school counselor of today wears many hats but most importantly serves all students, not…

Sexual minority (e.g. lesbian, gay, bisexual, questioning; LGBQ) and gender minority (e.g. transgender) youth experience myriad health risks. Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) are school-based settings where they may have opportunities to discuss substance use, mental health, and sexual health issues in ways that are safe and tailored to their…

In this study, the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy sought to uncover the ways in which Massachusetts schools and districts support students' behavioral health needs. This study was guided by the following research questions: (1) What are districts doing to integrate social, emotional and behavioral health supports? (2) What are…