Screening for Behavioral Risk: Identification of High Risk Cut Scores Within the Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener (SAEBRS)

The purpose of this study was to support the identification of Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener (SAEBRS) cut scores that could be used to detect high-risk students. Teachers rated students across two time points (Time 1 n = 1,242 students; Time 2 n = 704) using the SAEBRS and the Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (BESS), the latter of which served as the criterion measure. Exploratory receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses of Time 1 data detected cut scores evidencing optimal levels of specificity and borderline-to-optimal levels of sensitivity. Cross-validation analyses of Time 2 data confirmed the performance of these cut scores, with all but one scale evidencing similar performance. Findings are considered particularly promising for the SAEBRS Total Behavior scale in detecting high-risk students.