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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 12 Fostering Educational Excellence: The PBIS Success Story at Malvern Elementary
Unlock the secrets to cultivating an educational oasis where students thrive behaviorally and academically. Our esteemed guest, Danielle Hawk, the principal of Malvern Elementary, brings to light the transformative effects of building strong relationships and a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) system in the school setting. As we unpack her evolution from a middle school math teacher to a beacon of leadership, you'll learn how genuine connections with students can reshape an entire educational experience. Danielle's narrative reveals that recognizing and addressing the unique needs of each child isn't just a lofty ideal—it's a practical strategy that uplifts classrooms and invigorates learning.
In our compelling discussion, we traverse the multifaceted landscape of implementing a durable PBIS framework at Malvern Elementary. Hear how this approach weathers the storm of administrative turnover, intertwines with the 'Leader in Me' program, and brings parents into the PBIS fold with open arms. We reflect on the school's successes and gaze toward the horizon, envisioning new onboarding processes that immerse staff into a culture of positive reinforcement. Through Danielle's insights and Malvern's initiatives, we offer a blueprint for educators and parents alike to foster a nurturing environment where every student can shine and every teacher can guide with confidence and compassion.
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:And today we have Danielle Hawke. She is the principal at Malvern Elementary, very close school to us, in proximity, and we're going to talk to her about PBIS today. Oh God, how are you guys?
Speaker 1:Oh, we're good, we're good. So tell us a little bit about yourself and why you went into education.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this is my 23rd year in education. I was actually blessed to teach at Minerva Middle School for 18 years. I taught eighth grade math, which I hold near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 2:I was hoping you would add up that you were a Minerva lion at one time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, yes. And then I went from the red M of the street to the green M, so now I'm a Malvern cornet. This is my fifth year as elementary principal and I absolutely love it. So I love both of my roles in education. So yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, that's awesome. So all these times, whether it be administration or teaching, do you have that one moment that you're like this is why I do this, Something a student did or something that happened and you're like this is why I keep coming to work?
Speaker 1:You're aha moment.
Speaker 3:I reflected on that question. I can't really think back to a specific moment in time. I can kind of just think of towards the beginning of my career and then kind of after I got a few years under my belt. So when I started right out of college as a middle school teacher, you know, you know at the beginning you graduate and you think, oh my gosh, I'm going to touch every student's live, I'm going to make a huge difference. I'll go into that because we're very passionate about students, we're passionate about making a difference, we're passionate about education.
Speaker 3:And so at the beginning I was just making myself a little crazy, if I'm going to be honest, the first few years, trying to figure out why I cared more about education than some of these 13 and 14 year olds. Why was I more invested in their education than they were? And so I just was constantly reflecting on that. You know I was getting frustrated because I wanted them to care about their education as much as they did. So you know, you have all these tools in your toolbox. You learn and you know when you go to college and you learn from your professors or your student teaching experience and other respected educators, and I was implementing those strategies and reaching out to others for suggestions and you know, giving consequences and things like that and middle school can really be a tough age group, you know, and I just there were those few. I just I felt like I wasn't reaching and I thought I've got to figure this out.
Speaker 3:And I can't remember exactly when it was in my first few years, but I kind of had this epiphany, if you will, that I really shifted my approach with those difficult students. Instead of talking to them, why are you not doing your homework? Why are you not trying on this test? Why are you not listening? Why are you not taking notes? I decided to shift my approach and I started being extremely intentional about noticing personal things about that student. I see you got a haircut over the weekend. Oh my gosh, I love your new shoes. I know on Friday you said a headache. You had a headache. Are you feeling better today? Or I know your grandma was sick last week. How is she feeling? And so those were really my conversation starters with those students and I really Right in the beginning.
Speaker 2:Those PBIS clear back then because your relationship building and saying things in positive light Look, you were right on ahead of the times Way back then.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I just, you know I always have that mentality like I don't want to always rely on sending a student to the office. I've got to figure this out. I need to keep them in my classroom because they're not learning when they're sitting in the office, right? So that was just, you know, a big hurdle for me at the beginning. I wanted to figure out how I could make a connection and I was very intentional about always addressing students by their first name, knowing every kid by their you know, their first naming, greeting them every single day. And I really started noticing some of those challenging students, a shift in them. And I know, you know you hear the quote from Theodore Rose about a lot People don't care how much you know until you know how much you care about them. And I truly just realized that that is definitely true in education. I still use this principle to this day.
Speaker 3:I have a lot of interactions with students, teachers, parents, and on my drive home I often reflect on those interactions and make little notes, you know, in my plan or like I want to check in with so-and-so tomorrow. I know that they were struggling with this or this student wasn't feeling well. Today I saw them in the clinic. I want to touch base tomorrow or send a dojo home to that mother and just check on you know different things. And so I just I keep a running list because I noticed that those personal connections then paid huge dividends in the classroom and once I had that respect of those 13 and 14 year olds and the education piece just started falling into place.
Speaker 3:So those, those students that were really struggling, that were often a behavior problem, started doing things because of the relationship and the bond that I had with them. I would sometimes have those students come to my classroom and help me with things too. You know if they would get in trouble and get, you know, sent out of a different classroom, I would often go ask that other teacher hey, do you mind I noticed so-and-so in the hallway, do you mind if I pull them in my room and have them, you know, help me and just kind of be a teacher, aid this period instead of sitting in the hallway and? And so those and using that concept really helped me make a connection and then that relationship piece certainly affected their education. So I guess I don't really have a moment, but I remember that principle was huge for me and it's just served me well throughout my career.
Speaker 2:And, like we just said, that is PBIS core. I mean it really truly is. And all that you just said about building the relationship first and then the academics came is the whole reasoning behind PBIS to get that there so that the academics come. So that's just really awesome, daniel, that's great. I'm so glad you shared that.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad you did so. Now we fast forward to. You are the principal at the Malvern Elementary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so kind of tell us about your tier one that you have going on there. Ok, so You've heard of it, or you know, I'm sorry what were you saying, well, I just you know, maybe when you started it, and just things that you're doing, what you're proud of, yeah, so something that I wanted to be very again intentional about.
Speaker 3:As far as PBS goes, I know, you know, schools often experience a lot of administrative changes over the years, and so I had heard you know, through the years, as administration had changed, there had been some PBIS things put in place, but nothing really that was sustainable throughout changing staff members, pbis coaches, administrators, and so I feel, like you know, over the course of the last five years, I'm most proud of the fact that I feel that we now have a solid, sustainable infrastructure in place that could withstand staff and administrative changes. But the last, just to give you an idea, like last month, I was not able to attend the PBIS meeting. It went seamlessly without me being there. The agenda was already put together, sent out, follow-ups, were sent out to the staff, those things. We had a PBS refresher today that was addressed at the last meeting. All that just went seamless with and I wasn't there, you know. So that's what I feel I'm most proud of is that we now have a great team. We all bring different strengths to the table. We have clearly defined roles, but it can keep moving without one or two of those, you know, if somebody in a certain role is not there. They're sick, they're out of maternity leave or something happens that it's going to continue and flow without those people there every single time. So I feel really good about that.
Speaker 3:We started completing the tiered fidelity inventory and we often reflect in brainstorm and for the last couple of years we've started the year off by choosing one or two things that we feel is attainable for us to work towards for that year, and that kind of drives a lot of our decision-making in our meetings. So this year there were two big buckets we wanted to work on, and those were developing an onboarding process for new students and getting a parental involvement piece on our PBIS team. And so what we did this year is we developed a welcome committee for our new students. We do have students that like we had three that started last week, you know, after Christmas break we had three new students. So we interviewed a bunch of fifth graders to express an interest in being on our welcome committee and we put together a small group of students, which also ties into our leader and me.
Speaker 3:When we have a new student come in, I ask their parents to come in with them or whomever they're living with, and the welcome committee greets them in the front office, takes them on a tour of the building, shows them their classroom, their cubby, introduces them to their teacher, and then we bring the family back to the office and this is student. Led again by our welcome committee, they go over our PBIS procedures as well as our leader and me procedures, and then we send them home with a little welcome packet, a Malvern Hornet t-shirt, and they've already met some students on their first day. So then on the first day, that welcome committee will go out to the bus line or the car line, greet that student they're already familiar faces Take them to breakfast, take them to their classroom, check on them once or twice throughout that first day and then throughout their first week. Just some touch points to make sure that they are feeling good about their first week as a Malvern.
Speaker 2:Hornet. That's cool. Awesome, danielle Cause you've got two pieces in there. Like you said, you're putting leader in me and PBIS. Your leader in me is student led, but PBIS, that relationship you're building with that parent right off the bat. I mean you've got that parent hook line and thinker already because you've sent that extra time and to get to know them and give special things for the kid and grade. So that is a really great way. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:I love it, thank you. We've also added just very recently we've also had parent component to our PBIS committee, so we just got that in place too. So it'll be about our second month having a parent parental involvement on PBIS. So we've kind of implemented our two goals for this year and we're just working to refine and keep making gains towards improvement on things we've implemented in previous years and I feel really good about the direction that we're heading. I think we're going to go with tier one.
Speaker 2:That's great, thank you. So, now that you've got this, what is your projections to like? Where do you feel like you want to go next? Yeah, what are?
Speaker 3:you thinking about next. So I think really a good, attainable goal for us would be to create a solid onboarding program now for our new staff members. We have for our new students and our new families, but I feel like having a good program in place for our new staff. We do have a new staff orientation that the administration does. It's a very small setting, not so overwhelming that first week of the school and we check in with the new staff, but just some kind of where we do talk about PBIS and we give them information. We do have a handbook but I think, regular check-ins with our new staff members because there is a lot to PBIS and every school does it different. I think having a solid onboarding program for our new staff is really the next step that we feel we need to implement.
Speaker 1:That's great. It's really important to you know, make that new staff feel a part of the building, a part of the culture, and then really helping them to learn PBIS and bring them into new frameworks.
Speaker 2:So I think that is also a great idea because it is a lot and when a new staff or new teacher whether they're a veteran teacher or you know, coming from a different district or a brand new out of college, they're overwhelmed with a lot of stuff and sometimes they can get that idea was like I don't know if I have time for that, but we've heard over and over you don't have time not to do it. If you just, if you just listen and be a part of it.
Speaker 2:So including them and orienting them is awesome, and also to keep your sustainability, because you want to be authentic all the way through and you don't want you know new teachers to not be able to be on the same page.
Speaker 1:So that's absolutely awesome so do you have any tips for schools that might be just starting out with PBIS, or even teachers that maybe are in a school that really doesn't have much of a PBIS framework?
Speaker 2:Because you're the administrative support that we've talked about. That too. You have to have an administrator that's going to put a stamp on it. You know, because teachers can try it in their classrooms. You know they can try things. But if the administrator isn't on board then you're not going to get the entire staff. Right sure you were that stamp. We can tell, and I think that stamp.
Speaker 3:I think that that also sends a message of the importance of it. If the administrator is endorsing it or even just standing alongside that PBIS coach, when that message is being delivered, I think there's that unspoken message that this is important too to the administration. I'm backing up that coach, I'm backing these teachers up, and so I do think that piece is is very important. And I would just kind of circle back to my last answer. I do feel like putting something solid in place that's not just administrator driven or PBIS coach driven, because staff changes do happen and people you know, new people are going to come on. That PBIS committee or that administrator may change and I think finding a program that fits with your school, your culture, your climate, your one plan, your goals, that it all lines up, is really key so that it sustains itself long term. I really feel like that to me would be the big takeaway or tip for people trying to implement, implementing tier one PBIS.
Speaker 1:I think that's an awesome tip. Absolutely, sustainability is everything, because we do come and go, and so you know, you got all in place and it can operate. Then, as we move into, places.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:No, you talk about your team. I was just wondering what does. Now you said you just added a parent component. Who's on that? What's your, what's your makeup of that?
Speaker 3:So we have a PBIS coach, we have the elementary guidance counselor myself, and then we have representation from each grade level, so one teacher from each grade. We do have a PBIS handbook. We do have a building wide Swiss major. You know a form that we use that gets entered into Swiss. So we're all using the same forms, we're all using class dojo. We all are doing some kind of review at every staff meeting. Just a quick little buzz about PBIS, don't forget, you know, if there's an office referral that needs entered in. You know just those little touch points and reminders throughout the year so that we're all being consistent, we're all on the same page and that we have something in place that you know is going to withstand, like I said over time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is so important. I like the makeup of your, of your group. That's really nice. You kind of hit also the every grade level can be informed, they can go back, they can talk to their people yeah, to everybody. And then hitting it at the staff meetings too, just because you know, you're sure, yeah, so that's an elementary soul.
Speaker 3:I think what works for kindergarten is not going to work for fifth grade. So I think you need to have a voice across the board that everybody's you know. And we also have an intervention specialist, which I should mention as well, on our team. That way we're hearing from all voices and we're considering all groups of students whenever we're making decisions.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah that's great Well. Thank you for talking with us today. Absolutely, You've been listening to episode 12. Danielle Hawk from Malvern Elementary, as she has shared their tier one PBIS. We hope you've enjoyed today's episode. Please contact us at pbisjourneytogenius at gmailcom. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram.
