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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 14 Guiding a District to Excellence: The PBIS Transformation with Erica Bauer
Embark on an educational odyssey with Erica Bauer, the heart and soul behind Green Local Schools' remarkable shift towards a nurturing and conducive learning atmosphere. As a school counselor and the mastermind coordinating PBIS district-wide, Erica joins us, along with Diane Ruff and Dianne Ferrell to unfold the narrative of how positive reinforcement and strategic behavioral supports can revolutionize a school district. We celebrate the triumphs and discuss the texture of the journey that led to the successful implementation of Tier 1 support systems and recognition through esteemed awards. With a passionate emphasis on forging strong relationships within the school community, our conversation unveils the pivotal role of a united district-level PBIS team, supported by state, in sculpting an academic environment where every student thrives.
The conversation takes a deeper look into the craft of enhancing school performance through meticulously organized teams and the astute application of the Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI). We share the wisdom behind the maxim "go slow to go fast," a philosophy that has anchored nearly a decade of gradual yet impactful development. Erica's strategic focus on team composition and action plans has led to a district-wide culture of incremental improvement, and the enduring success of Tier One procedures. Join us as we celebrate Erica's tireless efforts in community outreach and her knack for rallying schools under the PBIS flag—culminating in Green Local Schools' proud moment as the new district PBIS Award winner. If you're inspired by tales of educational transformation, this is your invitation to listen, learn, and perhaps even lead change in your own community.
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:This is PBIS Journey to Genius. I'm Diane Farrell and I'm here with Diane Ruff, and today we have a very special person who's agreed to come and talk with us. We have Erika Bauer. She is a school counselor but also the district PBIS coordinator for Green Local Schools, and they have had quite a PBIS journey, and so Erika has agreed to come to us and talk a little bit about that journey and herself. So, starting out, erika, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and why you went into education?
Speaker 3:So thank you so much for having me Again. My name is Erika Bauer. I am a school counselor. I have been in Green Local Schools for 20 years and 17 of those years I've been a school counselor. I was in second grade before that. About nine years ago I started on this PBIS journey and it really tied into what brought me to education in the first place, and that was building positive relationships with kids and families. I always knew I wanted to be a counselor, but I fell in love with the school setting and the ability to really make connections with people.
Speaker 2:You have both our hearts right now, because I was a school counselor for 25 years and I just retired last year, and I've worked with my good friend Diane for many of those years and Diane was a second grade teacher, yes, so thank you for a lot of years. A lot of both of us. Yes.
Speaker 1:That's very cool. So, going into education or since you moved into the counseling world, you probably have an aha moment, something that just warms your heart or just keeps you coming back every single day. Could you share that with us?
Speaker 3:So I was really thinking about that aha moment and I think there's been many over time and again. It always for me goes back to building those positive relationships with students or parents. When I was a teacher and I had a student that finally made a connection with either the curriculum or was able to solve or work through something, it was so encouraging and I was so excited for that student or the family member that we were able to connect with. So I think for me it just all boils down to building relationships is the way that we can move kids forward, the way that we can best support them, and PBIS has really been a wonderful avenue for that, and to me that is what it's all about. So not one aha moment, but probably many, many over time. I just love seeing students feeling connected to that one person or many people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 1:We've been talking a lot about relationships and a lot of our other episodes and it really does seem to just come down to that People when they think of PBIS, if they don't know much about it, they don't think about relationships. But really PBIS is all about relationships, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Coming from that school counselors and teachers, you know lens that you're looking through. That is huge. So let's start talking about your journey, because you have not only had the bronze award. Several times, you've been awarded the gold and now the district award. So what is that all about? Let us know a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3:So we were lucky enough. About nine years ago the state support team in region eight contacted my principal and I about being a demonstration site. Our building is an early learning building, so we house our developmental preschool and our kindergarten and they were looking for early learning centers to work through the framework of PBIS and then be a demonstration site for the region so that other schools could come and kind of model or see the things that were working well for us. And when they first came to us I had been trained in PBIS many years before and it's like oh yeah, we're doing wonderful things. You know we care about kids, we're doing a lot of really positive things, but I really want to focus on tier three. So if we could start at tier three, that would be great. And they kindly said you know, no, we have to follow the framework and everybody does, everybody does.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they were absolutely right. I couldn't, we would not be here as a building or a district without state support, team eight and their support. So they were a hundred percent correct that we needed to sure up our tier one supports and make sure that our pyramid wasn't upside down, meaning we weren't supporting too many students at the tier two and tier three level that really could have been supported by solid tier one support.
Speaker 2:And you know, eric we talked about that in one of our previous podcasts that when you come to the PBS, just like you said, we need help for these severe kids, these two and tier two and three kids. But what they said to you is exactly what we're finding out. If you start at the ground level and you do that tier one and you do it strong, you affect some of those tier two and then that pyramid does go right side up. So it is true, but I know people don't feel that way. So how did you go on? How did you get to be a district? What does that mean? Do certain schools have to have goals, or what does that mean?
Speaker 3:So I think I'll get these percentages right. But 60% of your schools have to be recognized at the bronze level in order for you to apply for the district award. And then, just like the applications for the buildings, there's criteria for the district award. So even if 60% of your buildings have received bronze, that doesn't automatically mean that you'll receive the district award. There's additional criteria.
Speaker 3:With the support of Joya, our director of student services, we established a district level PBIS team as well. That includes the team lead for PBIS at each building and a building administrator. So we are really looking through that district level lens at what we're doing and trying to be consistent across all buildings. We are working our way through a tool called the DSFI, which is basically the TFI, which is what you use for your planning through tiers one through three at the building level. It's a district level planning tool. It is comprehensive. It has taken us a minute to get through it, but it really does ask those district level questions that help provide support to each building and really make it more of a philosophy as opposed to each building trying to do their own thing.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, that's interesting. Is there any other districts around that have the same status as you? Are you the only one in Northeast Ohio? Do you know so?
Speaker 3:I believe there's one other district in the SST-8 region, which would be Portage Summit in Medina County, that received the district award, and I'm not 100% sure what district that is at this moment, but I do believe there is one other one.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, that's quite an honor. So congratulations, I think that's a good thing, thank you. So I guess, what are you most proud of over the last several years that you've been working on in PBIS, that you've had a hand in, that you're just like? This is amazing. I'm proud of it. I'm proud of it our school.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think just that it is created kind of that culture and environment. I'm proud of so many things and proud of so many different little moments in time. For example, I was in a preschool classroom and a student in that classroom where we were talking about our expectations and being safe, kind and responsible, and she said oh yeah, my brother already taught me all about that and I just love that. I love that older students are going home and teaching their younger siblings about it before we even get a chance to meet them. That, to me, shows that it's spreading. I love seeing our expectations all throughout the community. We did adopt the same expectations pre-K through grade 12. So as students transition to different buildings, the expectations are the same. It's be safe, be kind, be responsible, and we've really found that, kiddos, no matter what grade level, you can fit just about anything into those three.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, did we freeze, expect to? Definitely, I'm sorry, oh no, I thought for a minute we froze, but no, we're good.
Speaker 3:So having that consistency. It's also great for parents. They don't have to learn a new set of expectations, they can use that language at home. We've had an amazing partnership with Starbucks in our community and they have really partnered with us to promote our expectations. They honor a staff member a week. We do two-week transitions, but they honor a staff member a week that is demonstrating PBIS and then that staff member gets to honor a student in their class. They provide us with these lovely gift boxes to present to the teachers and then the students also get a little gift box. So that's been really cool to even build relationships with businesses through PBIS. I'm so thankful for that, very proud of that.
Speaker 2:That is a real thing to get the businesses in on it. Because last week there was some talk about preparing kids. It was a high school Maslin City Schools and they were talking about preparing kids with these soft skills. For those high schools that don't think PBIS is for them it's an elementary thing, it's not. For them, those soft skills that get them ready for the workforce will look at Starbucks' understanding that they're understanding that the people that come to work for them, they want them to be kind, to be respectful. They want those Then to reward that, to branch out into the community and to have that reinforcement. That's just excellent, that's awesome, that's great to hear.
Speaker 3:We're very proud of that partnership and Starbucks has been so generous with our district always involved. That's been incredible. They've done some special events with the high school and contests. It's been really exciting. We also have our academic booster, so to speak. I guess you would call it is Green Schools Foundation, and they have partnered with us in our financially supporting our PBIS initiatives so that we can sustain the work. We try our hardest to make our acknowledgements things that don't cost anything but, as you know, there's cost involved in acknowledging. They have committed and partnered with us to give each building and our district funds to purchase because they also agree and see the value. We know that behavior and academics are directly correlated. If students are able to have a successful day, they're demonstrating safe, responsible behaviors. They're going to do better in their academic work as well. We want to honor students for all their success, not just academics, although those are, of course, very important, but we also want to honor those kids that are demonstrating those kind behaviors or going above and beyond to be safe or responsible.
Speaker 2:You said that was Green Schools. What was the company?
Speaker 3:That is a nonprofit organization within our Community Green Schools Foundation and they provide grants and scholarships to our schools. And they jumped on board to partner with us for the PBIS initiative.
Speaker 2:Nice, another community outreach. That's great. So you've got the whole package here. We can see it. It's so exciting If you had schools that were listening to this, because we've had lots that are listening to it, emailing us, asking us for help. What would be your tip in trying to? Because what we see you as different than others is you've gotten many buildings involved, so you're not just you have been working on your building, but you've got many buildings involved in this. What would be your tip for other schools trying to do that? Where would you even start?
Speaker 3:So I do think when you first start looking at PBIS, because it's been around for so long, because it's so heavily researched, it can be overwhelming all the information you can find. And for me, what we did through the support of coaching, through SST-8, and then what I've tried to model in our other buildings, is really following that tiered fidelity inventory. So, looking at the TFI, which is that tool, you can find it on, I think, pbisorg using that tool to help drive our decisions. So we started with the TFI here at Greenwood we scored ourselves. We did not score very well the first time and it was important that we scored as a team.
Speaker 2:Our coach made sure we understood. Who did you include in that and you did it the first time. Who did you include in that, because that would be a big tip?
Speaker 3:Yes, so we established a team. It had an administrator, it had myself as a counselor, our school psychologist. We had teachers representing all our grade levels, which for us it was just pre-K and K, but it was important to include both. We had a specials teacher and we had a classified staff member, a classroom aide, as part of that, because when you're looking at the questions, I may feel like we're doing a great job of something, but our staff other staff might feel like I don't feel like we have that yet. And that's exactly what happened I. You know, from my perspective, it seemed like we had things in place, but across the building maybe that wasn't being communicated correctly. So it was really important and I think it's okay to score really low.
Speaker 3:Like I said, we did not have a great score the first time. We did it, and it's not that we didn't upgrade things in place, but we needed to be a little more structured in what we were doing and consistent, and I think that's what that tiered fidelity inventory helped us do is get organized. So we were working smarter, not harder. We had lots of things and we kind of needed to weed the garden a little and focus on the things that were going to give us the most benefit. So that's exactly where I started with our teams at each building I met with, typically it was a counselor and an administrator, and we created a team for each building, again with that TFI criteria of having everyone around the table, all groups represented, so that we could get the best picture of our building.
Speaker 2:So you are the common thread at Green. Okay, because that's important right there. So you, from what I see, right, diane, we have this one common thread person. So your advice in doing this as a district and Diane jumped in anytime is reaching out to your SST, okay, getting your support, taking that tiered fidelity just to the heart, like let's not worry about being perfect, let's worry about being how everybody feels, and then doing that across all the buildings.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and really the other thing that was nice about that that helps me is when we scored, we immediately started creating action steps, like, for example, the first point on the TFI, I think, is team composition. So we looked around the room and said, wait a minute, do we have all team members represented? And if we were missing someone like let's say we hadn't invited a classified staff member Okay, let's make sure that's our action step For our next meeting. We wanna get someone invited to the team. So we started creating those action steps and then that was my agenda guide going forward.
Speaker 3:So, as the person trying to create the agendas and keep us moving, it helped me so much because I could just look at that and be like, okay, we did that, now let's move to our next step. What's the next thing we need to do in our action plan? And it made it because we're all busy and we all have lots of hats to wear. It made it much easier to take it one piece at a time. I remember my coach for SST8 who I just she knew so much. She had such a wealth of knowledge she would just give me one piece at a time to work on and I greatly appreciated that and she would always say go slow to go fast, really taking our time and being thoughtful about it. We've been doing this. This is our ninth year. It took us a minute to get everything in place. We planned for an entire year, tier one before we rolled anything out to teachers because we wanted to make sure we had it.
Speaker 2:I understand that too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we wanted to make sure everything was right before we shared it with teachers and of course there were things we needed to adjust. But I mean, really for the last eight and a half years we've been doing the same things for tier one and it's still strong, it's still working, it's not gotten stale, it's been very effective and we've seen amazing growth in our building.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That is, that's great. Yeah, I just believe the tier one has got to be so strong and we've had the same tier one procedures in place for as long as you nine or 10 years and, yeah, kids just know and understand all the expectations, and so we're very pleased every year at our pyramid as well. I love the fact that you're able to get your other schools on board. Our middle school is starting to really move along with that. We're still trying to get the high school on board, but I think the fact that you're that common denominator with the different schools sounds like that's a good thing. A good thing.
Speaker 2:All right, diane, are we about at the end of our podcast? It just went so fast. But, erica, I really want to thank you so much. You brought such a wealth of information to schools who are starting this out. Your community outreach is amazing. That is wonderful. That's a big take I took notes.
Speaker 2:I thought, oh my goodness, yeah, because I'm thinking yeah, talk to our team about reaching out and that whole idea of you being that common thread and getting those schools on and using that tiered fidelity to get that stuff. I mean those are all such great things to share and take away from this. So well, everyone, that's all the time we have, so I'm Diane Farrell and I'm here with Diane.
Speaker 2:Ruff, and this is our podcast PBIS Journey to Juniors. Please reach out and email us if you have any questions or concerns. We'd love to email you back and let you know, especially with this new district PBIS Award winner, green Local Schools. So thanks again, erica, and we'll see you all next week. Wasn't that awesome.
