School Sampler:
Lebanon, Oregon

Location
Lebanon School District
485 S. Fifth Street
Lebanon, OR 97355

Contact
Kerry Luber, Director of Student Services
Phone: (541) 451-8511, ext. 241

Description
If there is any doubt that Oregon schools are taking the bullying issue seriously, one need only read the results of a survey of Oregon school principals conducted in spring 2000 (Sprague, 2001). Of the 432 surveys returned, the top-rated risk factor shown to increase school violence and discipline problems was bullying.

Certainly, student shootings such as the one at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, have given schools a wake-up call to the seriousness of violence, bullying, and other less-serious problem behaviors. Lebanon School District responded to the seriousness of the issue by conducting its own survey of teachers and students last year; bullying and harassment were among the top three concerns.

Lebanon has taken a whole-school approach to addressing problems of antisocial behavior, of which bullying is one step in a long continuum. Lebanon is using a research-based model, Effective Behavioral Support (EBS), developed at the University of Oregon. The model takes a three-tiered approach to prevention (Walker et al., 1996):

1. Primary or Universal Prevention for All Students
• Creating schoolwide discipline plans
• Providing instruction in conflict resolution/anger management strategies
• Providing effective teaching and schooling procedures

2. Secondary Prevention (One-on-One, Individual Interventions) for Students At-Risk for Anti-Social Behavior
• Identifying at-risk clusters of students
• Providing direct instruction in moral reasoning
• Lessons in anger management and self-control
• Providing school-based mentoring
• Encouraging family support and parent management training
• Providing consultant-based one-to-one interventions

3. Tertiary Prevention (Comprehensive) for High-Risk Students
• Connecting students to community-based social service agencies
• Developing individually tailored, wraparound services
• Providing alternative education strategies

The objective is to “inoculate” students against developing antisocial behavior by teaching prosocial behaviors. You can’t just be reactive to a situation; you must be develop a social environment in which children will be less likely to be affected by antisocial behavior. Of course, there are students for whom the universal approach is not enough, and further strategies as outlined above are needed.

Lebanon started implementing universal interventions five years ago. Kerry Luber, director of student services, emphasizes that a three-to-five year commitment to this process is necessary, and that one-day inservice training sessions are not enough. “Workshops are helpful if people know how to apply what they have learned to their own situation.”

Lebanon is making sure information is synthesized and applied. First, five to eight inservice training sessions are held in each school. District consultants work with teams in each school to apply what was learned in the inservice sessions to individual school situations. Each school team looks at its data to make decisions as to what changes should be made.

Evaluations of the strategies are ongoing. External consultants work with the principal to make sure rules are posted. Students will be randomly invited to explain the rules. If there is consistency of responses, then the message is getting out. Although formalized data are still being analyzed from evaluations and results are not yet available, schools are reporting dramatic decreases in student referrals.

Green Acres Elementary has started implementing the research-based Steps to Respect bullying prevention program this year within the context of the EBS framework [see the Assumption St. Bridget profile for more information about Steps to Respect]. Says Luber, implementing a bullying prevention program is the “next logical step.” He adds, “For the program to be more powerful, it should be part of a larger context of schoolwide prevention program.”