Program To Reduce Vandalism and To Improve Student Behavior at Vineland High School North

• NCJ Number: 75507
• Author(s): C F Valentine
• Date Published: 1978
• Length: 39 pages
• Sale Source: Eric Document Reproduction Service
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, Houston, Texas, February 2-6, 1979

Annotation

This paper briefly describes the behavioral and vandalism problems that faced Vineland High School North in New Jersey, the causes of the problems, the program designed to eliminate the problems, and the results of that program.

Abstract

The school faced many vandalism and behavioral problems during its first year of operation in 1976-77, and adopted a program to improve the situation in its second year. Underlying causes of the problems included lack of awareness by students, parents, and community about the school and its rules, and regulations; lack of concern among teachers and staff, and teachers' failure to use humanistic teaching concepts in the classroom. Other causes were the absence of a parent-teacher association, negative publicity, poorly defined discipline procedures, limited achievement opportunities for students, and insufficient personnel to deal with home and school problems. The program to deal with these problems involved adoption and dissemination of student rules, a series of parent orientation meetings, a new community information program, creation of a Parent Teacher Association, an inservice program in humanistic education, a peer leadership program, and the hiring of paraprofessionals to improve the communication between home and school. During the program's initial year, vandalism declined substantially, and student behavior generally improved. Suspension figures were higher due to greater attention to the problems that remained. The need for police intervention was greatly reduced, although arrest levels remained almost constant. The results of the project support the thesis that vandalism can be reduced by adopting a series of well-planned strategies adopted from research and adapted to specific needs of specific localities. Results also indicate that increasing arrest rates may indicate that student behavior is improving rather than declining, and that the number of student violations requiring arrest declines when overall behavior improves. Data tables are included.