| School Transitional
Environmental Program (STEP) |
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Program Overview
The School Transitional Environmental Program (STEP)
is based on the Transitional Life Events model, which
theorizes that stressful life events such as making
transitions between schools, places children at risk
for maladaptive behavior. Earlier research has shown
that, for many students, changing schools leads to poor
academic achievement, classroom behavior problems, heightened
anxiety, and increases in school absenteeism, all of
which may lead to dropping out of school and other behavioral
and social problems. By reducing school disorganization
and restructuring the role of the homeroom teacher,
STEP aims to reduce the complexity of school environments,
increase peer and teacher support, and decrease students’
vulnerability to academic and emotional difficulties.
Program Targets
STEP best benefits those students at greatest risk for
behavioral problems who attend large, urban junior or
senior high schools with multiple feeders and which
serve predominantly non-white, lower-income students.
Program Content
STEPS’s success is achieved through redefining
the role of homeroom teachers and restructuring schools’
physical settings. Together, these changes increase
students’ beliefs that school is stable, well-organized,
and cohesive.
Students are assigned to homerooms in which all classmates
are STEP participants. Teachers in these classrooms
act as administrators and guidance counselors, helping
students choose classes, counseling them regarding school
and personal problems, explaining the Project to parents,
and notifying parents of student absences. This increased
attention reduces student anonymity, increases student
accountability, and enhances students’ abilities
to learn school rules and exceptions. All Project students
are enrolled in the same core classes, which are located
close together in the school, to help participants develop
stable peer groups and enhance their familiarity with
school.
Program Outcomes
Evaluations performed at the end of ninth grade demonstrate
that STEP students, compared to control students, display:
- Decreases in absenteeism and increases in GPA
- Stability of self-concept (compared to decreases
for control students); and
- More positive feelings of the school environment,
perceiving the school as more stable, understandable,
well-organized, involving, and supportive.
Long-term follow-up indicated that STEP students, compared
to controls, had:
- Lower dropout rates (21% versus 43%), and
- Higher grades and fewer absences in 9th and 10th
grades.
Replication carried out in two lower to lower-middle
class high schools and three junior high schools showed
that STEP students, compared to control students, had:
- Fewer increases in substance abuse, delinquent
acts and depression;
- Fewer decreases in academic performance and self-concept;
and
- Lower dropout rates.
A replication including students from lower risk backgrounds
demonstrated similar results. One year after the program,
STEP students, compared to controls, demonstrated:
- Less self-reported delinquency, depression and
anxiety; and
- Higher self-esteem, academic performance, and school
attendance.
