INTRODUCTION: Internalizing and externalizing behavior concerns are common among youth. Schools provide a valuable place to identify students at risk for internalizing and externalizing behavior concerns and connect them to appropriate resources. Schools often rely on office discipline referrals (ODR) to identify students who struggle with behavior. Schools may organize their office discipline referrals into the two categories of major and minor according to the intensity of the behavioral incident. Universal behavior screening is another alternative to identifying behavioral and emotional risks in students. Both ODRs and behavioral screening can be used to identify at-risk students.

AIM: This study aims to observe the relationship between the Student Risk Screening Scale – Internalizing and Externalizing (SRSS-IE) behavior screener and major, minor, and total ODRs.

METHOD: The sample included 965 students across two elementary schools. The Zero-Inflated Poisson Model was used to examine major ODRs, and the Negative Binomial Model was used to examine the relationship between universal screening, minor, and total ODRs.

RESULTS: For the major and minor ODR outcomes, when there is an interaction effect between the external and internal predictors, major and minor ODRs are reduced. Additionally, the external variable positively predicts total ODRs.

DISCUSSION: The results suggest that the externalizing subscale on a behavior screener may be useful in predicting minor ODRs at the end of the school year.