Maggie Kearns

PBIS Reflective Journal

2/10/14

Since I joined the PBIS committee this far into the year, I had assumed that they would
have had everything in place already and that they would be using the bi-weekly data to make
sure that everything is going as planned. I was surprised to find; however, that the first meeting I
attended seemed as though the committee was just starting to get on the right track. This was
actually a good thing because it was great for me to see how they were planning to improve their
current system to make sure that all students are being supported in ways that would benefit them
behaviorally and academically.
Dr. Howard currently only uses the check-in/check-out intervention. The discussions at
the meeting revolved around how this intervention is not effective for all students, especially the
upper elementary grades for which the students are not extremely fazed by it. Check-in/check-
out seems to be most successful for students the younger students that have a desire to please the
person that they check in and out with. The PBIS team identified that a major issue with their
system is that they do not have any additional interventions to provide the students that are not
successful on the check in/check out system. They are going to be researching additional
interventions to implement in the school that will allow them to move forward with students that
have not yet been successful on the check in/check out system. Additionally, they are going to
make sure to consistently use data to determine if students should begin the check in/check out
process or if they should stop using the process because they are successful or not successful.
This way, students will not be stuck in an intervention that is not working for them.
This was a great meeting for me because I was able to see how the team worked together
to identify their weak areas in the system and make a plan to correct these areas. I am excited to
see how PBIS at Dr. Howard will move forward to make a better system for all students at the
school to be successful each day.


3/10/14
At this meeting, it was once again interesting to see how the PBIS team was identifying
areas where the PBIS system throughout our school is not as strong as it could be. I found that a
lot of these specific concerns were related to certain incentives and programs that are in place for
everyone throughout the school, but that have ended up being used differently by many of the
teachers. One example of this was SOAR slips that are given to either individual students or
entire classes. The team was discussing different ways that the teachers use the slips to give their
classes incentives, and it turned out that almost every teacher took a different approach. Some
teachers said that they dont use the slips at all, while other teachers said that they give the class
a party or another reward if they receive 10 slips. The discrepancies between the way that these
slips are used throughout the school shows that the system is not universal and therefore may not
be as beneficial as they could potentially be. The team also identified a few other aspects of PBIS
at the school that were identified as being different from teacher to teacher and classroom to
classroom and therefore not exactly providing supports to the entire school.
Additionally, there were a few PBIS components that were discussed that are supposed to
be in place at the school but are not actually happening. One example of this was that all the
students that receive SOAR slips are supposed to have their picture taken. It was supposed to be
the assistant principals job to take these photos, but she has not been able to get around to doing
so because of all her other duties. The team discussed a couple of different ideas on how else to
get the pictures taken, and the final decision was that the 5
th
grade students could work towards
the privilege of being able to take the pictures of the younger students with their slips. This
solution is a way for the older students to be given some responsibility in the school, as well as
connecting them to the younger students. Finding ways like this to connect all the students in the
school is a great way to unite the school and to motivate students of all ages to use positive
behaviors.
I think that the meetings that I have seen so far have been very productive and have been
very targeted toward making the PBIS system more beneficial for all the students and staff. I am
excited to see all of the ideas being turned in reality and to see the effects that these changes have
on the entire school environment.


Summary of PBIS Committee Meetings
I believe that this team has very good intentions; however, they currently lack the
organization and resources to successfully implement a school-wide program to encourage
positive behavior in students. Due to days off school, safety drills, etc., there were only two
meetings throughout the entire four months that I was there. At these meetings, I felt as though
the team worked really hard to identify the areas where they need to improve on, yet they did not
succeed in creating a plan to target these areas. I believe that with more regular meetings and a
more concrete agenda for the meetings, the PBIS team would be able to successfully create a
PBIS system that would improve the behaviors and motivation of all the students at the school.