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Kindness Matters

Group of three kids smiling
Over the past several years, we have worked to develop a positive climate for both students and staff through the use of a Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support approach (PBIS). This approach is based on teaching and reinforcing kind school behaviors as well as tracking how well our teaching and reinforcing of behaviors is working through the analysis of data by school-wide PBIS teams. Our goal as the District PBIS Implementation Team is to increase our students and staff’s kindness to self, kindness to others, and kindness to our environments.  Why kindness?  Because kindness is contagious!  Check out these short videos about how our brain craves kindness:
  1. Being Kind is a selfish act...no really - it can actually extend your life!
  2. Check out this article on more health benefits of kindness. 
As we increase kindness across the district, we will decrease the behaviors that interfere with positive environments.
To continue improving our overall school climate, our district PBIS Team has made a few important decisions. 
First, as we prepared for students to return to in-person learning last school year, we learned that each school had its own expectations. While all of the expectations were appropriate, having different expectations for each school can be confusing for: our families with children in multiple schools, students when they move between schools, and staff who travel between schools. As a result, we determined a need for common expectations districtwide anchored in kindness: Kindness to Self, Kindness to Others, and Kindness to our Environment. 
 
Our focus as a district team was to create the framework for PBIS that includes guidance for:
  • PBIS team membership and operating procedures
  • Teaching and ongoing reinforcement of expectations
  • Defining classroom-managed vs. office-managed behaviors
  • Data collection and use
  • Reflection and adjustment
We are excited to have a PBIS framework! As you read through our digital manual and work with your teams to develop your school-specific implementation of PBIS, you will likely recognize artifacts our schools have developed over the last several years. Thank you for sharing your work and what you have learned. You have helped us immensely as a team to learn and develop our district-wide approach to PBIS!

What is PBIS?

PBIS is a framework that...

  • Diminishes challenging behaviors

  • Improves climate, culture & safety in our schools

  • Increases learning outcomes
  • Increases responsibility for behaviors
  • Helps students self-regulate behaviors
  • Reinforces desired behaviors
  • Increases social behaviors
  • Embeds data-driven decision making
  • Teaches appropriate behaviors

Why PBIS?

With PBIS, we will...

  • Increase kindness

  • Create a calm, physically and emotionally safe environment for students, families, and staff

  • Develop predictable routines and social interactions

  • Increase academic performance by reducing problem behaviors

  • Reduce bullying behavior

  • Increase staff retention