Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009

Central credits program with changing school culture

Administrators in Central District 104 are crediting PBIS — positive behavior interventions and support — with bringing a new culture to their schools.

In 2007, Central was one of the first school districts in the state to implement PBIS, which is an Illinois State Board of Education mandated program designed to put Illinois in compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Over the next two years, O'Fallon District 90 will be rolling out its plan for implementing PBIS, which offers a systematic approach for creating and maintaining a safe and effective learning environment in schools while emphasizing self awareness, social awareness, self management, responsible decision making and relationship skills.

District 104 educators say PBIS has created a new culture of safety and security in their schools.

"The environment we are seeing it create here is just tremendous," said Dawn Elser, principal of Central Elementary School. "We are seeing great gains (in dealing with behavior problems) and I think that is a result of us being in the third year of implementation.

"The culture of the school is just fantastic and others have noticed the change," she added.

"We have had compliments from our substitutes teachers," Superintendent Steve Amizich explained. "One retired teacher who substitutes here all the time said ours is the only junior high she will substitute in. She substitutes in every kind of environment and she cannot get over how well-behaved the kids are.

"That tells you something about how successful this is. You can see it. The kids are happy, secure and safe," he said. Elser noted, "The thing behind PBIS is that you teach the kids the expectations — what behaviors we expect.

"I think we sometimes take for granted that kids know how to behave in an assembly, that they know how to behave in the restroom or sitting in the cafeteria. We take the first two weeks of school and we teach them ‘cool tools.' We teach them our expectations so they have the base set for the entire year.

"Another thing about PBIS is it is geared around positive reinforcement," Elser said. "We tell them about not talking about other kids, not putting down other kids. It is all positive and the more we say it and model it ourselves, the more the kids catch on and do it themselves."

oseph Arthur Middle School Principal Pat Anderson said, "At the junior high level it is even more effective because the kids have been exposed to this for a while. After three years, our eighth grade students understand what is expected of them and what is going to be tolerated, and they have bought into it.

"We have a big success theme going on," he explained.

"Everything we do and everything we teach all gets back to being successful. Why do we learn how to walk down the hallway the right way? Because it will get us to class quicker and make us successful. Why do we tell a teacher when kids are misbehaving and arguing? Because it will keep kids from getting kicked out of school and it will keep them in class and help them be successful."

District 104's program includes a lot of incentives and rewards, Elser explained.

"Anytime we catch a student doing the right thing, we pass out a Tiger Ticket. And it is not just administrators and faculty but maintenance people, latch key people, cafeteria workers, secretaries.

"At the end of every month they may use those tickets to buy things from the Roar Store," she explained. "We try to get things with a little bit of monetary value but we have added things like allowing kids to do the morning announcements or to be principal or librarian for an hour or to have lunch with a teacher — things kids really love."

Anderson noted at JAMS school spirit items are a big hit.

"The kids really like the school spirit stuff a lot and we are getting more. We are getting some tee shirts to give out and we have JAMs jump drives and pencils," he said.

"It shows them that good behavior pays off in the end," Elser pointed out.

"I think we are doing more preventative kinds of things and that is a real systemic change," Amizich said. "We have more real-time information about the students’ performance in every aspect — social, behavioral and academic. And we have grade-level team meetings to discuss performance data to identify problems and to identify kids with issues.

"With PBIS and Social Emotional Learning (SEL), we are able to reach not 100 percent but in the high 90 percentile and we are sure kids with issues are not being ignored. There are always going to be a few who have a little bit of turmoil in their lives throughout the year but, overall, even the ones who are in crisis have more good days than bad days. And if their issues are not solved or resolved or made better, it certainly is not for lack of effort," he said.

Anderson said data gathered by the district supports the claims of success.

"Our referrals have gone down every year since we started PBIS. And when it comes to fighting and time out of class, all of those numbers have gone down as well," he said.

Elser said 85 percent of Dist. 104 students fall in the tier one category, indicating they cause few problems. She then noted 15 percent of students are in tier two and need a little bit more help.

"For kids having difficulty with being disruptive in class, we have a personalized program called check and connect," she explained. "They must check in each day with me or the social worker and we give them a sheet with a goal to reach. Every half hour they earn a smiley face if they are successful with the tasks. At the end of day, if they have an 85 percent success rate, they get a Tiger Ticket."

Both principals said the district also has seen a reduction in bullying but they said PBIS is not the sole reason for the decline.

"We see some incidents of bullying but I don’t think they are as severe," Elser said.

Then she noted, "We have some other avenues for dealing with bullying. We have the bully box (for reporting incidents anonymously) and we have policies about not tolerating it."

Anderson agreed, "Bullying has gone down but I don’t think that is 100 percent PBIS. We also have a bullying policy that we enforce very strictly. And on top of PBIS we have incorporated our SEL program in which we teach coping skills and we teach empathy. So it is a little bit of each."

Anderson added, "What I like most is that it is now considered cool to stop something from happening. It has become part of the culture that, instead of encouraging each other to fight or to gossip, those things are being reported to us quickly. The mean, bad mentality is gone. It is no longer a good thing to want to cause trouble.

"We have a happier school and it is a positive environment," he added. "The teachers are positive and encouraging of their students. We don’t have teachers yelling at students to get results out of them. So we have happier teachers with happier administrators, school board members and parents."

Anderson then pointed out parents bought into the PBIS program early on.

"The PTO financed PBIS for us and it is a very expensive endeavor," he explained. "We budgeted $7,000 a year for the PBIS initiative and all that money came from the PTO."

He added, even with the loss this year of the PTO, the district continues to do many of the things the parent organization in the past did to support PBIS. This weekend's annual haunted school is one event that supports PBIS.

mraeber@bnd.com