The Behavioral Support Services Section in the Exceptional Children Division at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has taken the lead in implementing school-wide Positive Behavioral Support Programs in North Carolina. In 2000, the positive behavior support initiative began as part of the North Carolina State Improvement Program. The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent the implementation of the school-wide Positive Behavior Support program impacts the school problem behaviors of African American students in North Carolina elementary schools.

The design used in this study was a quasi-experimental design. The design subtype most appropriate for this study was a repeated measures design with an intervention. The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, descriptive statistics and trend data were used to test the four null hypotheses. The output for the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test significance level was equal to or less than .05, for there to be a statistically significant difference.

The instruments created by the researcher for use in this study were the Student Information Data Collection Instrument and the Student Information Data Summary Form. These instruments were designed to obtain data regarding total number of disciplinary referrals, total number of short term out-of-school suspensions, total number of behavioral referrals for special education services, and total number of students identified as Behaviorally/Emotionally Disabled, for the entire student population as well as for the African American student population. In addition to the data collected from the schools, archival data was received from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction relative to student enrollment; students identified as Behaviorally/Emotionally Disabled and incidences of short term out-of-school suspensions for the entire student population and the African American student population.

Results of the study revealed there was no statistically significant difference in school problem behaviors of African American students as a result of the implementation of the school-wide PBS program in North Carolina elementary schools. In addition the research revealed there was a statistically significant difference in school problem behaviors of students in the total population as a result of the implementation of the school-wide PBS program in North Carolina elementary schools.