Running Head: DIVERSITY 1

Diversity Comparison of Alliance Elementary School and Minerva Elementary School

Gabriela Botzman

University of Mount Union

DIVERSITY 2

Introduction

For my Networking and Diversity placement, I visited Minerva Elementary School (MES)
which is only about twenty minutes from where I teach at Alliance Elementary School
(AES). A primary difference is that their elementary building serves close to 1,000
students in K-5, whereas my building serves about 410 second and third grade
students. Dr. Bishop recommended that I visit Minerva to observe how they utilize
Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (PBIS) in their building, and how they have
sustained it in a positive and manageable way. Minerva has recently won gold for PBIS
from the Ohio Department of Education, so I knew there would be a lot of great
processes that I would be seeing. In order to set up my visit, I emailed Mrs. Diane Ruff,
the principal at MES to introduce myself and hopefully establish a day and time that I
could complete my visit (Appendix A). During our communications prior to my visit, I had
the obstacle of being summoned for jury duty so we had to reschedule, but Mrs. Ruff
was very accommodating and I was able to visit MES for a half day on Thursday,
February 16th.

The focus of my school improvement project at Alliance Elementary School is

implementing a Tier Two intervention for students who are in need of behavior support
through the use of Kickboard as our behavior management system. Visiting Minerva
Elementary would allow me to learn new strategies from seeing what they do on a daily
basis and in their big picture plan for behavior management and PBIS. They won gold
recognition from the Ohio Department of Education in 2021. The specific area for
improvement I am focused on observing at MES is PBIS and utilizing data to drive
decisions in regard to PBIS. Since Minerva Elementary is so proficient in their system,
there isn't just one thing that I want to learn from them. I especially want to look at their
data collection, and how they utilize that since that is the focus of my project, but there
is much more to their system that I want to know about.

As a way to prepare for my time at MES, I completed research beutilizing the resources
on their website (Appendix B), and data from the school report card. At this time, I had
never visited Minerva before, and was going into this project with very little background
information. At the end of my visit, I sent two handwritten thank you notes to the
principal and guidance counselor, Mrs. Ruff and Mrs. Ferrell (Appendix C).
DIVERSITY 3

Table 1.1 Achievement Data Comparison

Alliance Elementary Minerva Elementary

School School

Achievement 3 out of 5 4 out of 5

Progress n/a 4 out of 5

Gap Closing 5 out of 5 5 out of 5

Graduation n/a n/a

Early Literacy 2 out of 5 3 out of 5

College/Career Readiness n/a n/a

Looking at the achievement data, there is a difference in the scores from AES and MES;
however, it is not a large discrepancy. The only area where AES and MES are in the
same range is within the gap closing domain. The achievement category shows how
students are performing on the statewide exams, and both buildings have received
ratings that met or exceeded the state expectations which is fantastic. The progress
category is trying to determine if the achievement of students is trending upwards over
the course of multiple years. This is not available at AES due to the grade levels we
serve. As a district overall, Alliance had three out of five stars in the progress domain. In
the category of gap closing, both districts earned five stars which shows that both
buildings are making great efforts to have students in a variety of subgroups meeting
grade level standards, as well as how many students identify as gifted and are
chronically absent. Of course, since both of these are elementary buildings there is no
graduation data available. Early literacy refers to how students in kindergarten through
third grade are making progress towards reading proficiently. Specifically, it looks at
how many students are leaving third grade and entering fourth grade reading at a
proficient level. Based on the data, that is happening more often at MES than at AES.
Again, both buildings are only serving elementary age students so there is no rating for
the college and career readiness domain.

Table 1.2 Demographic Data Comparison

DIVERSITY 4

Alliance Elementary Minerva Elementary

School School

Total Number of Students 417 828

White 65.7% 94.6%

Black 12.7% 0.7%

Multi-Racial 19.7% 3.4%

Hispanic Not Calculated 1.4%

Students with Disabilities 18.0% 12.9%

Economically 100% 44.6%

Disadvantaged

Gifted Identified Students 9.1% 7.6%

When considering the demographic data, there are a few areas of very noticeable
differences, which is racial diversity and the percentage of students that qualify as
academically disadvantaged. There is a discrepancy between the amount of students in
the building with AES only serving two grade levels and MES serving six grade levels K-
5. Proportionately, the two grade levels at AES are about the same for two grade levels
at MES. There is another large difference and that is how many students are identified
as having a disability. At AES, there are 18% of students, or about 75 students, that
have been identified as having a disability. At MES, there are 12.9% of students, or
about 107 students, that are identified as having a disability. When looking at the
differences in the population size of students within the building, AES has a much larger
amount of students identified as having a disability in comparison. When comparing
AES with other nearby elementary schools, having 18% of students identified with a
disability is much higher than others.

Area of Focus: PBIS Implementation with Data Driven Decisions

My improvement project focused on establishing a procedure for implementing a Tier

Two intervention for students in need of extra behavior support using Kickboard as our
data source. I went to Minerva Elementary with the intention of learning about their
whole PBIS system, and how the different tiers work together. I know that in order to
completely implement a successful Tier Two intervention, there has to be a successful
DIVERSITY 5

and intentional Tier One in place because as we know, Tier Two cannot be the first level
of support students are provided.

In my building, we have a new behavior plan this year that has been a huge
improvement from previous plans. That being said, there needs to be consistent
procedures in place, which is what I hoped to gain from this experience. As educators
we like to say that there is always room to grow and have a growth mindset, but MES
has a plan in place that is so extensive and thorough that they do not currently have
much need for improvement. They won gold for their PBIS plan in 2021, and AES is
currently working towards being able to apply for bronze.

The guidance counselor at MES is largely responsible for the overall implementation of
their system. In addition to her, there is a PBIS coach on every grade level whose
responsibility is to ensure that the specifics of implementation are being followed within
their grade level and to be the first level of support to teachers. This helps to establish
consistency and to decrease the frequency that teachers are relying on administrators
for behavior support. There are eight behavior groups that the guidance counselor runs,
which she sees individually on a two week rotation. She is also overseeing all the data
from the Tier Three individual behavior plans, and oversees the PBIS coaches. An
additional person that is crucial to their implementation is the adult serving in the
reflection room where students go if their behavior has continued in three or more
instances. This person is responsible for inputting behavior data into their management
system, SWIS, and for helping students complete a more intensive reflection sheet.

Every August as the teachers at MES are returning to school, they hold a PBIS
refresher as their continuous training and professional development. This is held over
the course of at least one full day, where teachers rotate between stations that review
the expectations and policies of the building. They also have consistent meetings with
the grade level coaches for continuous improvement on their policies and to focus on
specific student concerns. This helps to maintain the processes from year to year, as
well as train any new staff members when they join the building.

At AES, there is currently a PBIS team but the group is made up of our principal, dean
of students, guidance counselor, family support liaison, and a couple teachers when
they are able to attend the meetings. During the 2022-2023 school year, there has only
been one PBIS team meeting. There is no professional development for the staff,
except for a one hour long session at the beginning of the year which was facilitated by
one team of teachers. The focus of this conversation was to make them aware of the
plan of how to use Kickboard in real time. As far as we know, there is not a set process
for identifying which students need a functional behavior assessment (FBA) or behavior
intervention plan (BIP) completed, and there is no set process for teaching or enforcing
DIVERSITY 6

our behavior expectations. Right now, there is a functioning Tier Two intervention group
that is data driven, but it stands alone in the building.

When AES moved away from the color coded clip chart behavior system, there was a
lot of pushback from some of the teachers who had been using the clip chart for years.
They did not see the reason for change, and were unwilling to learn a new system.
Eventually, there was a change of heart, and they began using Kickboard and the new
system with more interest. As a school, it was understood that this change made us be
“a PBIS school” and that one change was everything that was necessary to be done. It
is my impression that there are a lot of misunderstandings within the ideas of what PBIS
truly is, and I think this is why there is so much of a discrepancy between our
implementation, and what ideal PBIS implementation looks like.

Area of Expertise:Takeaways from MES

It seems impossible to identify everything that I brought back to AES from MES. I was
so impressed with everything they showed me, and when I arrived back at school the
following day I had already started creating a plan to adapt what they did to fit our
school. Since we are working to create a new PBIS system in our building, it was
important to me that while I wanted to bring back many of their ideas and processes, I
wanted to do so without losing everything we have worked to establish. Since our
building now has a strong Tier Two process, much of what I wanted to bring back is the
Tier One process from MES. I think that MES excels with their Tier One implementation,
and it would be an easy process to adapt to match our established procedures.

Minerva tracks a rating of the students’ whole day in their take home folders using
different colored stamps. If they get one or less poor choice marks, which is the
equivalent of the reminders we give at AES, they get a green stamp. If they earn two to
three poor choice marks, they earn a yellow stamp, and four or more poor choice marks
earn them a red stamp. It was decided by my building principal that we would not adapt
this part of their system since we had just recently moved away from a color coded
system, and since there was a lot of resistance moving away from that it would be
discouraging to go back to a color coded system.

The easiest change, and the first one we implemented was the process for tracking
students’ progress towards individual behavior rewards. We already have a way to track
our students’ positive behavior interactions on their individual incentive cards (Appendix
D), but these are displayed in the classroom and we had been trying to get away from
that but had not come up with a solution yet. Students at Minerva each have an
individual incentive chart that is kept in a folder at the teacher’s desk so it is not
displayed. This is also where the students, with the help of the teacher, also determine
DIVERSITY 7

an individual behavior goal that they need to be working towards. Students can color a
mark on their individual incentive chart when they earn green stamps, and they earn an
individual reward when they have colored in ten places on their incentive chart
(Appendix E).

It was also determined that AES would maintain our original process of students earning
a stamp on their individual incentive charts whenever they earn a star, or receive a
positive interaction on Kickboard, as a way to avoid utilizing a color coded system
again. I brought back from Minerva a way to track students’ positive behavior
interactions in a way that is private, but still student owned. My third grade team has
piloted this adaptation of their plan that still keeps our district language and basic
method for tracking student positive interactions (Appendix F). We also really liked the
idea of each student having a behavior goal that they are working towards, so that was
included on their new incentive chart. As a resource, I also created a list of example
behavior goals for teachers and students to use as a guide (Appendix G).

In addition to this change, my team has decided to pilot a flow chart for how to manage
minor behaviors that happen throughout the school day (Appendix H) which was
adapted from the Minerva PBIS flow chart. In order for the flow chart to work, we agreed
upon a list of major and minor behaviors, and appropriate consequences for each
(Appendix I). Both of these documents, the flow chart and major/minor behaviors, are
necessary so that there is consistency between teachers in how we react to and
manage behaviors.

An aspect of the flow chart is that reminders cannot be given out more than one at a
time, and there is a process to be followed when giving out reminders. We have
assigned buddy teachers in order to implement a buddy teacher time out, and I created
a similar reflection sheet for students to fill out during this time (Appendix J). Since we
are piloting this program, our interventionist decided that she would be the adult for the
climate room time out, where students will have another reflection sheet that they work
on (Appendix K).

The other main change that my team has decided to pilot and that we will be
implementing at AES as a result of my time at MES is the Behavior Boot Camp that all
students experience every year. At the beginning of each school year, every student at
MES will complete their Behavior Boot Camp that reviews all the behavior expectations
and individually goes over the procedures for each area of the building. My team
decided that we would do a Behavior Boot Camp this spring where we each take an
area of the building, and teach the procedures for that area using our PBIS behavior
matrix while the students rotate through (Appendix L). A process that we want to
implement, but have not completed yet, is creating lesson plans and videos like MES
DIVERSITY 8

has done so that all students in the building are hearing the same expectations and are
being taught the same procedures.

We are also implementing a Zero Club, which MES uses to recognize the students who
have earned zero poor choice marks, or for AES reminders, over a determined course
of time. My third grade team has already implemented this weekly and monthly. Every
Friday, we take the students who did not earn any reminders for the week into the
hallway for a photograph that can be posted on our school wide communication and
those students earn a piece of candy or a couple minutes of free Chromebook time. At
the end of every month, we gather all the students from our hallway that earned zero
reminders that month and they take a group photo that is posted on the Alliance City
Schools social media pages. They also earn an incentive from their homeroom teacher,
such as candy or free Chromebook time. It was a concern of ours previously that we
spend so much time during the day redirecting behaviors, that our students who are
always doing what they should be actually get less attention and recognition. So,
implementing this is one way we are trying to address this concern and ensure that all
students get the recognition they deserve.

I think that through implementing these procedures, we will have a much stronger Tier
One implementation plan at AES. With these procedures in place, our students will have
behavior interventions available before they are in need of a Tier Two intervention. Now
DIVERSITY 9

that we have established procedures, it will be easier to reteach behaviors and students
will know exactly what is expected of them throughout their school day.

Area of Growth
One other idea that I learned about while at MES was the utilization of the program
Leader In Me. I am familiar with Steven Covey and his books about effective habits but
was not familiar for this framework and character program for students and schools. I
was exposed to this program while at MES, since it is the basis for their character
education program. I learned that the school program has seven habits that they spend
one month on per school year. Every month, the class meetings and guidance lessons
are focused on this one habit, so by the time students are in fifth grade they have had
repeated access and reteaching on those habits and are able to apply it to their lives.
There is a weekly class meeting that is focused on the habit of the month, work is done
for each habit that is added to their data binder, and there is a lesson each month on
the habit that is taught by the guidance counselor.

At AES, we have previously used the program Getting Along Together as our character
education program. This was phased out during the 2021-2022 school year, for reasons
I am not sure of. Previously I have not taught in a building where there was a character
education program, so overall the experience is new for me. Our guidance counselor
does lessons once in a nine week period, but it is not consistent or following any sort of
program.

I bought the book The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World are
Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time by Steven Covey where he explains how his
program is different from others like it, and why the program is valuable. The program
itself is expensive, and comes with leveled books that are used to teach the habits to
students of different ages. As a way to avoid that and still understand the program, I
found an alternative children’s text titled The 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Sean Covey
that can be used to teach the habits to students. Of course it isn’t the same level of
resources as buying the whole program, but it was still a great resource to be able to
bring back to AES.

I am in the process of reading both texts, and think that we can implement the seven
habits with some of the lessons we already have from Getting Along Together. Whether
we use Getting Along Together again, or use a new program, I think it is important to
bring a character education program back into our building because that is another facet
of our Tier One instruction that our students need. This is something that I am hoping to
be able to bring to AES next school year, as I think trying to begin this school year is
making too much of a change for the other teachers on my team and me.
DIVERSITY 10

Connection to Alliance City Schools Mission and Vision

The implementation of these procedures directly relates to the mission and vision of
Alliance City Schools. The mission statement of Alliance City Schools says “Our mission
is for all students to reach their fullest potential and become productive citizens through
staff who establish high expectations, a safe, positive and engaging learning
environment, and content that supports critical thinking, collaboration, communication
and creativity.” Through the implementation of a stronger PBIS framework and providing
interventions for students, students will be able to reach their fullest potential because
they're following the high expectations set for them in the school. This will enable them
to learn in the best way possible. By having interventions for students who are not
currently meeting our expectations, we are teaching students to be productive citizens,
to be safe, and to be able to collaborate, communicate, and be around others
successfully. The procedures brought back from MES will help to establish an
environment within the building that is more positive for students and staff. Students will
know exactly what is expected of them throughout the day, and staff will have a clearer
process to follow. Ideally, this will help us reduce the amount of time every day that we
spend redirecting behaviors that do not match our expectations. That time can then be
put towards instruction, or even differentiating instruction for our learners who need it
most. Additionally, I know it would reduce the stress of teachers and overall create a
more calming and nurturing environment for all.

Reflection

This has probably been the most impacting aspect of the internship class so far,
because I am able to see an example in real time of what my improvement project could
look like long term. Sometimes we get stuck in our ways and any other processes or
perspectives are hard to understand, but seeing something that works at an exceptional
and sustainable level is so important to our understanding. I believe that there are some
things that you have to learn by seeing, and this process was one of those things.

I feel like the information I received during my observation at Minerva was what made
my improvement project come full circle. I implemented a successful Tier Two
intervention using data, but now there can be a Tier One as well. It really made me
understand that everything we need to do is within reach and possible.

Every teacher and staff member that I spoke to at MES was incredibly positive and
continued to mention how much their teaching careers had been impacted by their PBIS
system. It doesn’t fix every problem, but it provides such a solid foundation for the
school to function with. The teachers said they would never go back to a time when they
DIVERSITY 11

did not have a system like this in place, and if they went to a different building or district
having a similar PBIS plan would be a requirement for them to work there.

When considering which standard most of my visit applies to, I think it is a combination
right now of Standard Three: School Improvement and Standard Ten: Strategic Staffing.
Standard Three is an obvious choice, because we are gathering new ideas and
information that are needed in our building. Standard Ten applies because we are
creating a plan to utilize our staff in different ways to make a difference, such as utilizing
buddy teachers or our climate specialists in different ways. Once the changes and
adaptations are put into place at AES, I think the continuous learning and continuous
improvement that would happen would become a combination of Standard Five:
Professional Capacity of School Personnel and Standard Seven: Community of Care
and Support. These standards apply after implementation because we are participating
in new training and procedures, and creating an atmosphere is the building that is more
positive for both staff and students.
DIVERSITY 12

References

Alliance City School District. Home. (2023). Retrieved March 18, 2023, from
https://www.alliancecityschools.org/

Alliance Elementary School at Rockhill School Detail . Ohio School Report Cards.
(2022). Retrieved March 12, 2023, from
https://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/school/detail/145417

Alliance Elementary School at Rockhill School Overview . Ohio School Report

Cards. (2022). Retrieved March 12, 2023, from
https://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/school/overview/145417

Botzman, G., Ferrell, guidance counselor, D., & Ruff, principal, D. (2023). Diversity
Placement Observation at Minerva Elementary School. personal.

Covey, S. (2020). The 7 Habits of Happy Kids. Simon & Schuster Books for Young
Readers.

Covey, S. R. (2014). The leader in me: How schools and parents around the world
are inspiring greatness, one child at a time. Simon & Schuster.

Leader in Me . Leader in Me - Educational & Student Leadership Programs &

Curriculum. (2023). Retrieved February 14, 2023, from
https://www.leaderinme.org/

Minerva Elementary School School Details. Ohio School Report Cards. (2022).
Retrieved March 14, 2023, from
https://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/school/023077

Minerva Elementary School School Overview. Ohio School Report Cards. (2022).
Retrieved March 14, 2023, from
https://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/school/overview/023077
DIVERSITY 13

PBIS plan. Minerva Elementary School. (2023). Retrieved February 4, 2023, from
https://mes.mlsd.sparcc.org/pbis

Staver, A. (2022, September 15). Find your school's state report card and
understand how to read it. The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved March 10,
2023, from
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/education/2022/09/15/how-to-read-
the-new-ohio-state-report-cards-for-schools/69494403007/

Success for All Foundation . (2015). Getting Along Together. Success for All
Foundation. Retrieved March 20, 2023, from
https://www.successforall.org/our-approach/targeted-programs/getting-
along-together/

SWIS . PBISApps. (2023). Retrieved February 20, 2023, from

https://www.pbisapps.org/products/swis
DIVERSITY 14

Appendix

Appendix A:
DIVERSITY 15
DIVERSITY 16
DIVERSITY 17
DIVERSITY 18

Appendix B:
DIVERSITY 19

Appendix C:

Appendix D:
DIVERSITY 20

Appendix E:
DIVERSITY 21
DIVERSITY 22
DIVERSITY 23

Appendix F:
DIVERSITY 24

Appendix G:
DIVERSITY 25

Appendix H:
DIVERSITY 26

Appendix I:
DIVERSITY 27

Appendix J:

Appendix K:
DIVERSITY 28
DIVERSITY 29

Appendix L: