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PBIS Journey to Genius
Are you in the process of developing your PBIS Framework? Are you wondering where to start? You are in the right place. Join Dianne Ferrell and Diane Ruff as they share the ups and downs of creating and implementing a top-notch PBIS framework that has empowered their school to achieve Ohio recognition as a PBIS Gold School for 4 years. They will also share current issues in behavior management and how PBIS can help with those ongoing struggles. We would love to hear from you! Email us
@ pbisjourneytogenius@gmail.com
PBIS Journey to Genius
EPISODE 8 PBIS Boot Camp: Where Theory Comes to Life
Ever wondered why your child’s school places so much emphasis on something called PBIS? What if we told you that it’s the key to managing student behavior and promoting a positive learning environment? Join us today as we unravel the mysteries behind the Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) system in schools and explain how crucial data is in guiding its implementation. We'll share insights into the use of programs like SWIS for data assessment and an inside look at how we create an expected behavior matrix for different school zones.
Let's paint a picture together of a PBIS boot camp. Imagine students actively practicing the required behaviors - a fascinating exercise that brings theories to life. This episode also features a practical approach to teaching rules in schools. Hear about our unique "daily five" concept, where peer pressure is creatively used to encourage rule-following. We'll share the story of Diane and Dianne's successful "buddy teacher timeout" system and their emphasis on having the principal's involvement.
As we journey towards becoming geniuses in managing school behavior, we'll explore the importance of establishing and enforcing rules and procedures. This journey doesn't end here; it's just the beginning. As a curtain raiser to our next episode, we'll touch upon the acknowledgment system in schools - a motivating tool that helps students understand expectations. So, buckle up for an enlightening conversation that promises to change your perspective on school discipline and behavior management.
Buddy Teacher Timeout: https://www.wscaweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/9aa30ee066d1d2d8a5021de3bcdd8669.pdf
Minerva Elementary website: https://mes.mlsd.sparcc.org/pbis
Welcome to PBIS. Journey to Genius. Are you in the process of implementing PBIS? Are you wondering where to start? You are in the right place. We are here to support you. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2:All right, welcome everyone to PBIS, our Journey to Genius. I'm Diane Farrell and I'm here with Diane Ruff, and we are two educators that have worked together for many years and we started a Positive Behavior Intervention and Support System several years ago. That's helped our school receive many awards and we are doing a podcast every week to share our trials and successes so that you might use these to help you in your Positive Behavior Intervention Journey. So every week we have some guests on, but this week it's just going to be Diane and I, so we're going to talk just us, but we're going to let Diane recap our guest and what was said last week.
Speaker 2:So, Diane, what did we talk about?
Speaker 1:Well, last week we talked about the importance of data and our assistant principal was here, mrs Miller, and she shared, you know, the importance of looking at data because that drives everything that we do and that's the genius part of the genius of PBIS is pouring through that data, looking for maybe parts of your Tier 1 that aren't working so well, or there's a child that's melting down at a certain time. Your data can tell you so much and when you study your data then it's going to help you create that plan for the Tier 1, or even for a behavior plan for another child.
Speaker 2:And we talked about a program last week called SWIS. Okay, and that is really easy to use and we have loved using it and it gives a lot of information to share with your teams, with your staff. It's very easy to do that. So if you do get on PBIS SWIS not like Switzerland and it will, we've just used it a lot. But whatever you use, data is very important to show that your system is working. So today we're going to move away from that system and we're going to talk about Tier 1.
Speaker 2:So when Don and I were starting this years and years ago and if you use our listen to our podcast, you'll know why we started it but we knew that we had to start a Tier 1. Now I know that whenever you're starting PBIS, you might sit there and go, but I really want to address the kids that are having problems. You know it's okay what we do with everybody else. I need to know what to do for this student who's under the desk or won't stop moving or talking out. But the trouble is, pbis emphasizes the importance of Tier 1. And Tier 1, if you do it well and consistent throughout your building can take care a lot of those Tier 2-ish kids and will control those behaviors.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. Where we started in implementing our Tier 1 was, we decided after we created the matrix and we talked about the behaviors that we expect in all the different areas of the building and what that behavior looks like, how it feels, you know, seeing it in action. We then thought the next step is to practice it, physically practice it, so we called it a boot camp.
Speaker 2:We did. Diane actually came up with that. We were like perfect because she said she goes boot camp. That's where they go and practice to be in the military. So we're going to practice, so we called it our PBIS boot camp.
Speaker 1:And so what we did is we, you know we talked to the teachers again about the matrix and just what they need to do in their classrooms and a lot of teachers, as you heard in prior episodes, you know teachers had some things under control in the classroom, but we were really concerned about the main areas of the building. We were very concerned about the behaviors in the bathroom because you all know, if you work with children, especially elementary, the long poles of the paper towels across the hallway and the soap towers everywhere you know they like to do those and kind of wear them like a beard on your face.
Speaker 1:The running in the hallway, because a long hallway looks like a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:And we have long hallways. We do in this building, you know.
Speaker 1:And then our cafeteria. We had a free for all, really, in the cafeteria we would just dismiss and kids, we would expect kids to go up and drop their trays off. Well, elementary kids run into each other, they drop their trays. It's a big mess and we thought, you know, we need procedures for that. So there were a lot of aha moments in the beginning when we were creating our matrix. So we have that all designed. But the next step was how do we get children to do it? We do it through a boot camp. We practice physically, practice doing it, and that was an eye-opener for us, because we're used to telling children what they need to do.
Speaker 1:We do and then we just expect it to do it just because we tell them to do it.
Speaker 2:But that's not the way we learned that very clearly that you can't just go over a set of rules one time and expect them to do it and tell about that algebra class video that you found. So this was another, very you know it was like genius again, because it was so simple.
Speaker 1:And yet, as we all sat there and watched this video, none of us had ever thought to do it. But it was a video where a middle school algebra teacher. He was teaching the rules and procedures for his classroom and the very first procedure was after switching classes, you did not enter his classroom, you stood in the hallway in a straight line and you got quiet and you had to stand there and then he would invite you in. So he was practicing this. He was making his seventh and eighth grade students practice this, so they would start to come in to the room. If one person talked, he would stop them. He would say we need to practice again. Everybody back out in the hallway, everybody line up, and then, when everyone was quiet, he would send them in again. When someone talked, he would stop them, send them back out, line up against the wall, wait a second or two till everyone was quiet, because he did not send them in until everyone was quiet. You, I forget how that goes. We expect. We get what we expect.
Speaker 2:Yes, and he said that on there. And I know that even when I was watching the video, you got to the point why don't you just let him in the room? Okay, but it was, it was a genius, he said. He actually did it 25 times 25 times Now.
Speaker 1:we didn't watch that happen 25 times but we watched that video and it was just eye-opening. And I think I made the connection then to the daily five. And some of you might know about the daily five. But there is a part in the daily five where you teach stamina and you teach children to silently read. You know, and so if you're, you know, I was a second grade teacher you know how do you just get children to sit at their desk quietly and read silently for 10 minutes? Well, it never happens. Well, because I never taught them. Well, in the daily five. It's the same concept. You come over, you gather around the teacher, you talk about what you're going to do and then you send everybody out and everybody's reading. But the minute someone talks you come back and you start again and you try to work up more time. So you know, maybe you're going to read, you tell the class we're going to read for five minutes, but if someone talks within that five minutes, you pull everybody back, you start the timer again and send them back out.
Speaker 2:So children start to get very irritated with the ones they do because they don't want to keep starting over. And there's peer pressure there, right, Because others like, don't talk, we don't want to do this over. So we really wanted teachers to buy into that. Because it was so important that first year? Because, remember, nobody none of the students you know, and we had 900 students in this building None of them knew the rules. So this first boot camp may seem painful, but every year after you're going to have a whole bank of students that know the rules. So it's not.
Speaker 1:And we didn't practice just one day. We created a schedule and we told the teachers give us two weeks you know this is two weeks at the beginning of the school year.
Speaker 1:We're not pulling from academics, we're teaching routines and procedures. Do that in your classroom. We will do it here, in the big parts of the building the cafeteria, the playground, the bus hallway, the bus and then we would pull grade levels down or classrooms down, and we would practice every single day. We would practice taking our tray up. We would in the cafeteria, we would go out onto the playground and we would send them out, blow the whistle to send them out to play, and then we would have them come back and line up and we would do that five or six times, so until everyone lined up quietly.
Speaker 2:And an important part of this. So you know, like Diane was the admin there. It was important that the admin was there because that also puts the stamp on it. You know, it's not just the teacher saying it, it is the admin. And the other thing that we did that I thought was so important is, if you have recess aides or you have cafeteria aides, she paid them to come in if that was early and be a part of that, because if they're in charge of the playground or they're in charge of the cafeteria, they have to be there for those practices and it's good for the cafeteria workers to see it because that's where your enforcement's going to happen. But they have to have that buy-in and they have to see it. You can't just tell them about it Like.
Speaker 1:they have to see it happening and be a part of it and you know, and I think the teachers realize, when we kept calling. You know we created a two week schedule, so every day the teachers knew at a certain time they were going to bring their class down to practice either cafeteria procedures or playground procedures. But then they also real, they were responsible to teach the bathroom procedures.
Speaker 2:Yes, they did do the bathroom on their own.
Speaker 1:But I think they you know. Instead, when we just tell people things, it doesn't always work.
Speaker 2:You've got to model it Because their interpretations, your interpretation, are two different things. But if you model it I'm a vision learner, you know I need to see. A lot of people just can't hear because you hear it in different ways.
Speaker 1:So I think the teachers then got it kind of like oh, that's what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:You know what I need to practice? Literally practice bathroom procedures every single day for two weeks and you'll recall that if you've listened to earlier episodes that Mrs Hunt talked about, you know practicing the three poles of the paper town, one square to scope, that we spent time doing that. Teachers did that, but I think when they saw the office, the admin, making it a goal, making it important, then they realize, oh, we need to do this in the hallway.
Speaker 2:So that's why our big you know every podcast we want big takeaways. So a big takeaway on this, if you're looking to do it, is one spending the time, the effort in the boot camp and to have your admin there, because it really is important.
Speaker 1:It's very important for the admin and teachers will then take that what I'll say to admin. You need to take the time to do this. This is absolutely the most important thing you'll do in running a building, because it's going to being proactive, saves you everything it absolutely does.
Speaker 1:Reactive, then you get muddled down in all the reactivity of all the behaviors later on and once you practice, once we practice, then it's easy to practice again. That's part of the teaching. So when a child doesn't follow the rules, doesn't follow the procedures, then that's a time to pull them aside. Maybe they do a little time out. We talk about what went wrong and then they practice.
Speaker 2:I know this was the greatest part of being able to use PBIS to teach those behaviors, because if we did the playground rules or we did the hallway rules and we had gone through all of that, everybody was very aware of that. But that children are children, okay, they may not do that. They may come in, they may start running down the halls or they may be making too many paper towel things all the way down or not following the rules on the playground. Well, now we're not just in trouble, we need to practice, because you apparently don't know the rules. So we take that little group aside and in a different time of the day and we take them out and we practice the rules. Now, no student wants to do that.
Speaker 1:So that is a good way. And they don't want to do it four or five times. No, they do not. They might practice lining up once. But then you say, okay, go run out onto the playground again and when we blow the whistle come back. And then they do, and then we say, let's do it again, let's do it again, or we walk up and down the steps three or four or five times, walking, not jumping up and down the steps To show how we do it, to show how we do it.
Speaker 2:So you really have to do all the common areas. So coming in in the morning, how do you want them to do that If you want them to walk up a certain sidewalk? I mean all of those things you need to have in your mind already, rules and procedures, so that you can practice. Now we also because we want parents, because sometimes sometimes parents will say why did my student get in trouble for four pulls on the paper towel? Or you know, it's a bunch of soap. At least they're clean, okay.
Speaker 2:So what we did was we also made videos. So we took classes that signed up for it and we had the classes make videos of those expectations doing it correctly, put it on our website so that if a parent was like I'm not quite sure or new students, it's fabulous for new students and then they can click right on that link expectations for the hallway, expectations for arrival and dismissal and then it's very clearly done and not a long video a minute, minute and a half but it shows the classroom doing it. And that way that would be another big takeaway from us. It's not only the boot camp but putting the videos in place.
Speaker 1:And then you know this really just helps the community at large. Our families know everything that we expect, but then it also helps any new staff coming into the building Absolutely that's training. They can watch these videos. We have lesson plans that go along with them. Those are also on our website and then you know our teachers review these. So maybe the classroom has practiced quite a bit, but we're struggling a little bit in November.
Speaker 1:You know the teacher might bring up the video as a reminder, because the kids have practiced quite a bit and so that's a good way to use it, and then, if it still doesn't work, then we go out and physically practice.
Speaker 2:So the videos are really nice, Really like. We talked about that two full weeks. A lot of our teachers thought that was overkill too, but then the next year you don't have to practice this much.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the genius of this again, because you don't change things. We have had the same matrix in place for nine or 10 years, the same big three roles be safe, responsible and respectful. So now we spend one day Well, actually one day going over everything and practicing with all the grade levels, but then after that we practice a lot with kindergarten and, you know, a couple of days with first grade, because first grade had it before as kindergarten. But what we find is we're not spending two weeks at all because nothing's changed. We're doing taking our trays up the same way we did nine years ago. We still expect walking in the hallway. We still expect three pulls of the paper towels.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Those rules don't change and we expect teachers, if they're going down the hallway and kids are starting to talk, they stop, maybe even go back to their room, start over, but make sure that that is the that's the procedure that we expect. So having those expectations, doing those, practicing, that is a huge part of tier one. The second part of tier one that's super important from the office Remember, this is all about, this is all about the office helping the teachers get these expectations in place Is office managed and staff managed behaviors.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to let Diane talk again. She's the admin here, Talk about how we came up with that and what that was all about.
Speaker 1:Well, you know the staff managed and office managed. We have that defined. We were calling them the majors and minors and define the behaviors. As things progress they change the terminology. But you know, in your building you need to define all of the behaviors, the misbehaviors and what you're going to do. And last, week.
Speaker 2:Mrs Miller said that that was defined at the middle school. So if you're a middle school and a high school you may have that already, but at an elementary it was a little bit more muddy so we didn't quite have. These are exactly the behaviors that constitute an office referral and these are. It was more up to teacher interpretation, which we definitely with teacher input.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that's that's part of the big five of the tier. One is making sure that you have defined the behaviors through staff managed and office managed behaviors, so teachers understand that, and then also having that flow chart to understand when do you send a child down to the office, when do you handle it in your classroom.
Speaker 2:And we put something else in there that not all buildings have. It's kind of buddy teacher timeout. So years ago, years and years ago, we went to a workshop where they put this in as a middle school thing. And um, uh Dyn and I both thought now, how can we? We do a lot of that, like, how can we make this work for elementary? So, um, I'm going to include the actual um website that shows you the research behind that.
Speaker 2:But what a buddy teacher, in tiny words, is that you have a teacher in your grade level that you do not switch classes with. So it's not something that that student sees all the time but is close. That is your buddy teacher timeout. So if that student is has a repetitive behavior but it's not an office managed behavior you send them to a buddy teacher timeout and what that does is that that teacher's ready, they go over there, they spend some time in that, uh, that alternate classroom. They also may.
Speaker 2:We'll write down a little bit about what they did. There's a format, this is all practiced. So teachers understand they take students back and forth and that way that student is not going to the office, not taking that whole time out of instruction, that they're out of their room for a little bit giving the student a timeout, you a timeout, and then they're back in their class and they may be listening to instruction, but that's also their grade level and they probably need that instruction anyway. So, buddy, teacher timeout has a lot of research base behind it and I am going to include the link on our website. So if you'd like to put that into place. But that's on our flow chart and that would be a step from classroom managed before office managed.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, the buddy teacher timeout is a great concept and uh, you know, that way kids aren't missing so much instruction because I got to go down the office.
Speaker 2:they got to wait on the principal. They might sit and enjoy a little office time yeah.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, they like. They like the distraction, they like to watch what's going on?
Speaker 2:Bug the secretaries. You know the things you know, and so this is a way to get down here.
Speaker 2:Right, no, not any more than they have to be. Um, so, uh, I guess what? Our last thing we want to talk about a little bit is, whenever we have guests, we give a Y and we give an aha. Well, we're the guests today. Okay, so, dying our own guess. But we did this on purpose because this was something we were taking from the teacher input, but we were the ones kind of putting it in place with Mr Scott, so he was a big part of that, but also our principal. But our why? So I'm gonna do the why. The why is we needed building wide rules and procedures and we needed them to be followed. So that was our why. So we had a large building, lots of kids. We had decided on the procedures, our matrix. We needed to now put them in place. So we needed this boot camp and that was our term. Diane thought it up, so it was our term. That didn't come from anywhere, but it was so great how we called it and we still.
Speaker 1:We do boot camps a lot. We just did. I just did a boot camp with our third grade about a week ago because we had some kids just again leaving the cafeteria, not walking from the cafeteria to the playground quietly. They were running and kind of yelling and our aides had asked them to stop. And then again the next day it happened again. So then they came to me. They will also go to Mrs Miller. It's really important again that the principals be involved in that. So I showed up the next day because Mrs Miller had something else going and when it was time to clean up third grade to clean up, they had to, because he's a little painful whenever you have to use a little bit of recess time to practice.
Speaker 2:Oh, so painful, especially in elementary school. We love that so much Little painful.
Speaker 1:So we make it a little painful. We reminded I reminded them of the way that we were supposed to walk out of the cafeteria quietly and that we were going to practice. And so we did that. We went outside, we lined up and then we came back in, because that's the most painful part. We came back in, we sat down at the table, then we lined up a second time, walked outside, then they could play and we used about five to seven minutes of their recess.
Speaker 2:But do not think that this is only an elementary thing. Do this with middle school and high schoolers. They won't like it either. They will understand the importance of procedures.
Speaker 1:And now you know, what I told my aides is that there might be a few children that need a third practice or, I guess, a second practice on the next day. So if we have trouble again, but really pay attention to if it's a certain class or a certain group of kids, because I really didn't want to practice with the whole grade- level.
Speaker 1:I wanted to practice with those children that just need the practice and they said you know, things were good. Now we're coming up on December and December is a very exciting month for all of us.
Speaker 1:And there's going to be lots of practicing going around. You know, we just need to do it, we need to just pull it back in. So you know, sometimes the staff thinks well, we've practiced this 555 times, why do we have to do it again? Why don't they get it? Well, they're children and we need to be reminded. So take the time to practice. Practice, you will feel better. The adult will feel better.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And then we're not just punishing, we're instructing. Now Diane's going to say an aha, because she's going to go to a little Swiss data, which I think is just wonderful. So you can't see this but, she's going to explain it to you.
Speaker 1:So in our data there is what's called the triangle data report and that measures your tier one. And so picture a triangle and you want your triangle to be, you know, all green. Maybe at the very tip top might be a little yellow and a tiny bit of red. This is how you know you have a really good tier one system. So we watch our triangle and after the first year I would say after that, our triangle has really always been pretty good. But I was just sharing with Diane before we started that it's extremely good this year. I'm very excited about it Because you know, we're a building of. We've dropped in enrollment, so we're down to about 800 now, kindergarten through fifth grade, but so far this year we have only had 48 students with one office managed referral.
Speaker 2:That's entirely since August.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful, that's 97% of our students have not had one single referral.
Speaker 2:Come on.
Speaker 1:And so picture that triangle.
Speaker 2:I wish our reading triangle looks so good Sometimes when your academic triangle.
Speaker 1:So then, if we moved to two to five referrals, we've only had 16 children in the building, half two to five, so that's, you know, 2.4% of that. And then six to eight referrals, we've had just five children and one child over nine.
Speaker 2:So I mean, you just look at that data.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's showing you that your tier one is working.
Speaker 2:So when we talked last week about data, data, data, there's your aha, because whenever you, whenever you're looking at things, you look at that data and you go what we're doing is working. So, as always, we like to have takeaways, and our takeaway from this podcast is it's all about the beginnings. It really is. You need a matrix of your rules. We've established that by your staff, but the genius is in the bootcamp.
Speaker 2:You need to practice. You need to go through those procedures in place. Everyone needs to be involved and the admin needs to have the stamp on it. They really do. They need to lead it For sure. They need to put that stamp on it.
Speaker 1:Well, all right, this has been a good podcast. It gets me all excited. I love tier one.
Speaker 2:I know and you know what, even though, like I said, we will recap again. When we started PBIS, we wanted to weed through to how do we deal with those kids that are causing problems. We really, I know, remember saying why do we need to do a bronze? We need to go on to tier two. But we found out tier one is so important and it took care, like we said before, a lot of those bubble behavior kids were taken care of by those tier one.
Speaker 1:So a strong tier one, a strong practicing, is so important and you know another part of the tier one is the acknowledgement system. Which we're gonna talk about next week, which we're going to talk about next week and then that really helps motivate those kids on the edge.
Speaker 2:Right, because now they know what to do. You've practiced it and practiced it. Now we're gonna do the acknowledge system. So next week we're gonna have some teachers in here to talk about that and how it works in the little grades, and then we're gonna move on to the upper grades. So that's all we have for this week's episode. My name is Diane Farrell.
Speaker 1:And I'm Diane Ruff. We'll see you next time on Journey to Genius.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, bye-bye.
