Transforming School with Local Stakeholders: Learning Labs for Culturally Responsive Behavioral Supports Aydin Bal Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education Department Research at WCER: Enhancing the Success of Teachers and Students October 20, 2014

Understanding Outcomes Changing Systems

Disproportionality Racialization of behavioral problems: African American and Native American students are twice as likely to be identified as behaviorally disturbed (BD) (Donovan & Cross, 2002) Racialization of school discipline: Youth from historically marginalized communities are punished more severely for less serious more subjective reasons such as disrespect or insubordination (APA, 2008; OCR, 2012; 2014)

Disproportionality: A Systemic Issue A runaway object partially shared by multiple interacting activity systems (Bal, Sullivan & Harper, 2014) A double bind that cannot resolved through individual actions alone (Engeström, 1987, p. 16) Requires situated analyses and joint co-operative actions (Artiles, 2011; Bal et al., 2014).

Methodology Learning Lab, a formative intervention design (Bal, 2011) Concurrent mixed data analysis (Onwuegbuzie & Collins 2010) Qual => Quan => Qual => Quan Re-mediating problem solving processes and renovating behavioral support systems with –not for- local stakeholders (Bal, 2011; Bal et al., 2014)

Local Patterns and Predictors of Disproportionality in Wisconsin

Odds Ratio of Being Identified with BD in WI Student-Level Predictors Male3.33*** Free- or reduced lunch2.55*** Asian (comparison: White)0.38*** Black (comparison: White)1.26*** Hispanic (comparison: White)0.78*** Native American (comparison: White)1.53** ELL0.22*** Reading Test Score0.75*** Math Test Score0.67*** Attendance Rate 0.96*** Transient (changed schools in current year)1.69*** p (*=<.1; **=<.05; ***=<.01) (Bal, Betters-Bubon, & Fish, 2013)

Odds Ratio of Being Identified with BD in WI School-Level Predictors Percent free- or reduced lunch1.00** Percent Asian0.99 Percent Black0.99*** Percent Hispanic0.98*** Percent Native American1.01* Percent ELL1.02*** Percent transferred3.54*** Percent proficient: Reading1.00 Percent proficient: Math1.00 School attendance rate1.03*** Percent white teachers1.00 Percent bilingual teachers1.01 Percent of teachers with Masters' degrees1.01*** p (*=<.1; **=<.05; ***=<.01) (Bal, Betters-Bubon, & Fish, 2013)

Odds Ratio of Being Removed for Disciplinary Reasons in WI Student-Level Predictors Male2.72*** Free- or reduced lunch2.08*** Asian (comparison: White)0.47*** Black (comparison: White)2.37*** Hispanic (comparison: White)1.11*** Native American (comparison: White)1.51** ELL0.60*** Reading Test Score0.73*** Math Test Score0.78*** Attendance Rate 0.95*** Transient (changed schools in current year)1.96*** p (*=<.1; **=<.05; ***=<.01) Bal, Betters-Bubon, & Fish, 2013

Odds Ratio of Being Removed for Disciplinary Reasons in WI School-Level Predictors Percent free- or reduced lunch1.00** Percent Asian1.00*** Percent Black1.01*** Percent Hispanic1.00 Percent Native American1.01*** Percent ELL1.01 Percent transferred0.79 Percent proficient: Reading1.00 Percent proficient: Math0.98*** School attendance rate1.00 Percent white teachers1.00 Percent bilingual teachers1.00 Percent of teachers with Masters' degrees1.01*** p (*=<.1; **=<.05; ***=<.01) (Bal, Betters-Bubon, & Fish, 2013)

Learning Labs

Learning Lab Building capacity in schools for developing locally meaningful and culturally responsive systemic solutions to behavioral outcome disparities Unit of Analysis: Tool mediated collective activity systems Disproportionality: An opportunity to transform school Moral Purpose: Participatory social justice (Bal, 2012)

Contradictions Space Expansive Learning Agency Transformation Praxis

Learning Lab Implementation Design Treatment 1: Gradual Inclusive LL + Concurrent (Cole Elementary) Treatment 2: Inclusive LL + Concurrent (Rogoff Middle School)  Treatment 3: Inclusive LL + Concurrent (MLK High School) Treatment 4: No LL/PL Workshop (Scribner Elementary) (Bal et al., 2014)

(Reprinted from Engeström, 2010)

CRPBIS Maps of Risk & Opportunities

Race/Ethnicity: 55.1% White, 15.5% Hispanic (tripled in 10 years), 14.7% African American, 9.8% Asian,.5% Native American, 5.3% 2 or more races; 12.8% ELLs(decreasing over 5 years) Income level: 34.4% FRL (doubled in 10 years) SPED: 15.5% Behavioral Data ( ) 50% of suspensions Black students 5% of the Non-SPED student population was suspended, while 18% of SPED students suspended/expelled MLK High School (Bal et al., 2014)

MLK Learning Lab PBS Team Learning Lab (Bal et al., 2014)

MLK Learning Lab PBS Team (N= 15) Learning Lab (N = 13 ) (Bal et al., 2014)

Family-School Partnership Continuous Data Collection Professional Development School Climate (Bal et al., 2014)

 “I went to MLK. My kids graduated from there, and I think this is the first time I heard about having a group with teachers, parents and administrators get together to talk about what we should do to improve or keep the kids in school” (Es, a Hmong parent)  “I was looking at how destructive, chaotic and crazy the system can be if you don’t find the mistakes that you are making and the things that you can change and you can apply” (Zoe, a Latina parent) (Bal et al., 2014) Reflections on the Learning Labs

 “We did something you know. It’s that sense of accomplishment…We brought all sorts of parties to the table. They all have different views and problems they see and how they should be fixed. Even though it might not be the real solution or the real problem, they bring just that one piece of information that can be crucial to what we’re trying to accomplish.” (Elias, a Latino student) (Bal et al., 2014)

 “I think what we are doing now, twenty years from now we can all look back and say we helped transform Rogoff Middle School and hopefully other schools pick up on it” (Grant, Principal) (Bal et al., 2014)

Conclusions It is possible to form and maintain productive problem solving teams including multiple local stakeholders- specifically those from are historically excluded and marginalized communities The implementations of new behavioral support systems in the Learning Lab schools will be studied Expanding Learning Labs to other Madison schools as a systemic transformation methodology developed by us for us

“A System Not Meant for Me” | Jonathan Williams

Contact Information Aydin Bal, PhD University of Wisconsin- Madison CRPBIS Project: