Here’s how Double Churches reduced visits to school office

To learn more about the discipline framework called PBIS (Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports) and how it’s helped Double Churches Middle School dramatically improve student behavior and reduce cases requiring discipline, the Ledger-Enquirer visited the school. Here’s what we learned:

Implementation

PBIS, according to its website, isn’t a “packaged curriculum, scripted intervention or manualized strategy.” Instead, it is a “prevention-oriented way for school personnel to:

▪  Organize evidence-based practices.

▪  Improve their implementation of those practices.

▪  Maximize academic and social behavior outcomes for students.”

In other words, PBIS schools repeatedly teach behavior expectations, reward positive results and track discipline data to strengthen weaknesses.

If you call this framework PBIS at Double Churches, you probably will get curious stares. The staff and students call it PRIDE. The acronym stands for “Perform academically,” “be Responsible,” “make Intelligent decisions,” “Do nice things,” and “Everyone is respectful.”

The Double Churches team came up with PRIDE as part of the 3-5 behavior expectations PBIS requires. An acronym isn’t mandatory, “but it’s middle school,” Fitts said with a chuckle, “so you always have an acronym.”

During the summer of 2007, Double Churches’ 12-member PRIDE team, comprising teachers, administrators and counselors, went through three days of PBIS training, funded by a School Improvement Grant. The Georgia Appleseed Center funded training for faculty such as Fitts who joined the PRIDE team in subsequent years.

The Georgia Appleseed Center has donated more than $30,000 to the district for training, said Tammi Clarke, the PBIS director in the Muscogee County School District. Additional funding will come from Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resilience in Education), she said.

Clarke emphasized that PBIS “requires all staff and faculty to be on board.” She praised the Double Churches leadership team for regularly monitoring discipline data, “allowing them to maintain awareness of what works and what does not work when it comes to changing behavior in their school.”

Too often, Fitts said, schools forget to teach the social subject of behavior while they teach the focus on the academic subjects.

“You need to act right,” he said. “Well, what’s acting right?”

Expectations

The answer clearly is declared at Double Churches. A banner emblazoned with a chart lists the Schoolwide Behavioral Expectations for each of the five parts of PRIDE in 15 settings posted throughout the school. For example:

▪ In order to perform academically in the classroom, “follow instructions and complete all your work in a quiet and timely manner.”

▪ In order to be responsible in the hallway, “walk silently on the right side.”

▪ In order to make intelligent decisions in the restroom, “flush the toilet and wash your hands.”

▪ In order to do nice things on the bus, “use a quiet voice and appropriate language.”

▪ In order to respect everyone in the cafeteria, “be polite and leave your area clean.”

“We don’t need our children to be confused about anything,” said Kenya Gilmore, the school’s academic dean. Teachers review the expectations with their students twice a year as a class and individually as needed, she said.

“When teachers have the procedures in place, and the students understand those procedures, it makes a difference,” said assistant principal Lashonda Miller, who is in her first year at Double Churches after serving as an academic coach at three other schools in the district. “The structure makes a big difference when the kids know what is expected.”

And then they sometimes produce unexpected and unlisted positive behavior.

“When our kids walk up in the morning, they hold the door for people,” Fitts said. “You just don’t see that in middle school kids. It’s part of who we are.”

Just ask teachers, students and parents.

Hartley, the special-education teacher who is the PRIDE team leader, especially notices the framework’s influence when a student transfers into Double Churches.

“They have transitioning time, and then the PRIDE expectations become clear to them, and the behavior that we saw come through the front doors, we don’t see it anymore,” she said.

For example, Hartley added, “Children who are sometimes verbally aggressive, sometimes physically aggressive, think they don’t have to be engaged in the discipline procedures. They come in and realize this is what’s expected of everybody, and they change their culture, they change their mindset, and they become involved.

“Then you see a total change in them. Now, instead of getting consequences and punishments, they’re now getting rewards and they’re getting to participate in things they never were able to do before.”

After each nine-week marking period, the students with straight A’s and no discipline referrals get their photo posted on the “Top Cats” wall. They also receive special privileges, such as a skating trip, ice cream and free admission to school events.

When staff members observe students exhibiting positive behavior, they can give them PRIDE coins. Students use their coins to buy prizes in the PRIDE store. If a child forgets an item necessary for school, such as a pencil, the teacher can charge a PRIDE coin.

Sixth-grader Brooke Scruggs, 11, is a Top Cat. She appreciates attending a school where “people treat you the way you want to be treated and have common sense when they’re making decisions. If you follow PRIDE, there are rewards in your future. You’re setting a good foundation.”

Fitts recalled meeting with an eighth-grade transfer student who was sent to the office for the first time in eight months this school year. The offense was violating the district’s cellphone policy and refusing to relinquish her device. Fitts looked at the student’s records, and the student had “14 or 15” discipline referrals last year at the previous school, including fighting and multiple suspensions.

The principal asked what prompted so much improved behavior in such little time, and the student replied, “It’s calmer here.”

Excellent example

Another eighth-grader agrees.

“I used to be bad and stuff, but I fixed myself and started doing my work,” the student told the Ledger-Enquirer.

He attends Double Churches as a hardship transfer. Because of his poor grades and poor behavior last year, he was sent back to the school in his attendance zone.

“I didn’t want to stay back there,” he said, “so I started trying to do my best.”

After attending summer school, he was given a second chance at Double Churches.

“A lot of people who I look up to are over here,” he said. “I came here and started doing my work and staying out of trouble, and my grades started going up.”

He was put on Check In and Check Out, a monitoring system for students with at least four officer referrals the previous or current school year.

It’s a daily behavior report card, Gilmore said, “for those students who need an extra level of support.”

The students check in with Gilmore or a counselor, and each teacher notes their behavior on the card after each class. The goal is 80 percent approval, and rewards are given.

This eighth-grader improved his behavior enough to graduate from Check In and Check Out. The framework has kept him on track, and he appreciates its connection to the real world.

“I’ll have a good job if I follow the PRIDE expectations through high school and college,” he said.

All three of Cherial Revell’s children have attended Double Churches. She notices the improved discipline at the school translates well at home.

“When they’re given a chore to do, they do it to completion,” she said. “Some kids don’t get that at home, but they do establish it here.”

Consequences

Cynics might say the opening of Veterans Memorial Middle School in 2007, which alleviated overcrowding at Double Churches, caused the improved discipline more than PBIS. But the per-100-students rate of office referrals dropped by 73 percent since it implemented PBIS in 2008.

Cynics also might say PBIS schools reduce their discipline referrals because the staff simply overlooks more violations. Fitts countered, “It’s magnified. It really is.”

Double Churches has codified the consequences of violating the Schoolwide Behavioral Expectations. Its discipline policy denotes the minimum punishments for offenses. All consequences are subordinate to the district’s policies.

Gilmore insists the school is stricter since it implemented PBIS.

“Because of the data collection piece of it, we’re really able to target specific behaviors or specific areas or specific students that we might need to give additional support to,” she said. “When we have those students who are repeat offenders, we have the opportunity to sit down and problem solve.”

Approximately 80 percent of the students have 0-1 office referrals. “That’s big,” Gilmore said.

The PRIDE team meets monthly to dig into the data and develop strategies to address deficient areas of discipline. Sometimes, Fitts noted with a smile, the teachers are louder than the students during class changes.

“I feel blessed to be here,” Fitts said. “These are good kids.”

This story was originally published May 11, 2016 at 6:19 PM with the headline "Here’s how Double Churches reduced visits to school office."