January 23, 2024 • 25 mins
Unlock the potential of positive reinforcement in education with Renee Parr, the passionate Assistant Principal of Washington High School, as she sheds light on the transformative effects of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS). Through her lens, we explore an educational philosophy that emphasizes what students should do, not what they shouldn't, and how this has revolutionized the learning atmosphere at Washington High. Prepare to be inspired by Renee's heartwarming stories from her 32-year career that underscore the inherent goodness in students and the importance of celebrating their achievements, whether on the sports field or in career tech programs.
Venture behind the scenes of Washington High's journey from the initial adoption of PBIS to the establishment of a robust tier two team, marking their ascent from bronze to silver status in the PBIS framework. Renee opens up about the school's innovative strategies and unwavering commitment that have shaped a welcoming culture, where student engagement thrives. As we wrap up our conversation, we're not just left with a sense of admiration for the strides made at Washington High, but also with a blueprint for fostering positive changes in other schools. Join the discussion and share your thoughts on how PBIS can reshape the educational landscape, and stay tuned for more episodes that promise to challenge and change the way we think about schooling.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to PBIS.
Journey to Genius.
Are you in the process ofimplementing PBIS?
Are you wondering where tostart?
You are in the right place.
We are here to support you.
Stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome everyone.
I'm Diane Farrell and I'm herewith Diane Ruff and we are two
educators from Minerva localschool district and we have been
working together for many, manyyears and we've been working
for PBIS for about the past 14years and we've done a lot of it
in our school and it's gottenawards and recognition and we've
(00:56):
started a podcast and with thatpodcast we hope to share
current issues and behaviormanagement today and how PBIS
can help with those ongoingstruggles.
We are sharing this journeywith you through this weekly
podcast entitled PBIS Journey toGenius.
So who we have in today?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Diane, so today we are talking to Renee Parr,
assistant principal atWashington High School, Maslin,
Ohio.
We are very excited to talk toa high school principal about
PBIS.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Okay, my name is Renee Parr and this is my 32nd
year with Maslin City Schools.
Born and raised in Maslin, leftand went to Bowling Green and
came right back and startedteaching right after graduation,
raised my son here in Maslin.
He played football for theMaslin Tigers and I couldn't see
(01:51):
myself being anywhere else.
That's great, just a great area.
I just can't believe 32 yearshave gone by so far.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Well, diane and I can talk to you about that because
we both have been in one schooldistrict.
We talked about that earlier inour podcast one school district
.
Now I did not tell you this,but I retired last year after 35
years in Minerva local schoolsand Diane is approaching those
numbers herself and we've beentogether all those years in one
(02:22):
school district.
So we've been friends andcolleagues and all kinds of
things.
So we understand what it's liketo come back to your home
district and then love it somuch that you stay there.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Like we understand, and longevity.
The fact that you've been therefor all those years, I think,
has probably benefited you inmaking some change for your
school as the years have gone on.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
So you want to tell us just when your heart gets
into it.
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Absolutely.
You know, we have at the bottomof our guests.
We ask them about an aha moment.
So in all of your years, your32 years in education, if you
look back teaching,administration, whatever does
some moment come to your mindthat you go oh, this is why I
teach, this is why I'm here.
(03:12):
Do you have an aha moment youcan think of?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
There's just many aha moments that keep reminding me
why I have been doing this for32 years and once you continue a
few more until retirement, it'sjust when you talk to people
and I'm sure you've heard thisbefore too where they say, oh, I
can never do that, I couldn'twork with kids all day like that
, and aren't they this andaren't they that?
(03:39):
And they're all good.
You know, there's so many ahamoments that keeps reminding me
that all kids are good.
They just have bad dayssometimes, like we all do, and
you know the aha moments ofseeing our kids succeed in.
You know we just had thedivision two football champs.
(04:00):
Our cheerleaders just tookfirst place in a cheerleading
competition.
We have our career techprograms, where our kids they
place at the state level and atthe national level.
Our speech and debate.
We just started speech anddebate back up and we already
(04:21):
had someone that placed in thetop three and a speech and
debate tournament.
So there's just so many thingsthat just keep.
When you come here every day,it's like, oh my gosh, they're
achieving, they're wonderful,and yeah, we all have those days
, but we've all had bad days.
They're just all good kids thathave bad days, and I think
(04:42):
there's just so many aha momentsthat keep making me think about
why I'm still in education andnever got out of it.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
It's so great, renee, and to hear all those
accomplishments at the highschool level.
Dinah spent our entire careerat the elementary level, so not
dipping our toes in that highschool world.
We just love it when kids learnto read okay, so that's
exciting for us.
But to hear what you've gonethrough, to see those older kids
accomplished, I mean that isreally special.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
That's really special to me.
It really is, and I love thefact that you're a high school
doing PBIS and that you havereally implemented the tier one.
So do you wanna talk a littlebit about that, your tier one,
and what you're proud of andjust everything that you're
working on?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, our tier one.
It became one of those thingswhere other people were running
PBIS and you heard about PBISbut you thought it was one more
thing that you had to try to doand it's one more thing that the
state wants us to do and youhave to do it.
(05:51):
And when you get past all ofthat and I finally I was the
last person that wanted to doPBIS at a high school level,
cause I at first also was one ofthose that thought, oh, this is
more of an elementary thing and, by the way, we thank you for
making them read or teachingthem how to read, because when
they get to us, we can do theseother things with them.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So we appreciate that .
I love that you say that,because it's not an elementary
thing, and I just think whatyou're doing at your high school
is amazing, and it is for thehigh school level, it's for the
middle school, so, yes, so keepon telling us more.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And we actually, once we started to get into PBIS, as
it not being another thing.
This is the way we are going todo things.
So you talk about behavior inschools every day.
That's a topic every single dayand, of course, discipline
always comes up.
But we just reversed it and,instead of talking about what
(06:54):
you're not allowed to do hereand what you shouldn't do here,
we just started talking aboutthings that you should do and
the way you should be whileyou're here, just coming here
and being a good person, beingresponsible for your schoolwork.
You need to be responsible tohave your Chromebook.
You need to be respectful byputting your phone away while
you're in the classroom.
If you bump into somebody inthe hallway, be kind and say
(07:18):
excuse me or I'm sorry.
If somebody falls, be kind andhelp them.
We need you to have the AirPodsout of your ears so you can
hear your surroundings, so youcan be safe.
So it's a matter of just turningthat mindset, of just turning
everything around and sayingthis is how you should be and
this is how you should do things, and then, hopefully, those
(07:40):
other behaviors go away.
I like that.
So when we started thinkingabout it that way, it is a
definite high school, becauseit's a lot of those soft skills
that our high school kids needto start.
A lot of them are going out andgetting jobs, they're
interviewing for scholarships,they're in the career tech field
, so they're leaving graduationand going right into the
(08:03):
workforce or when they're goingto college, by learning how to
be.
Those are just life skills andthe soft skills that you need
when you have to work with otherpeople.
So it more or less became notanother thing here, but this is
how we should be doing things.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I love that whole idea of changing your mindset.
I really do like those words.
Those are great words.
What is your acknowledgementsystem whenever you are
rewarding kids for making thosegreat choices and doing the
expectations you've put out?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, that was the hard part up here, because we do
not have a budget.
We have to do our ownfundraising If there's anything
tangible we want to purchase tobe able to give to students.
So that was a hard part.
So we first started trying tothink of ways we could
acknowledge students that didn'tcost money.
So every month we have close to95 staff members in our
(09:09):
building and every month everystaff member chooses a student
of the month for following oneof one or more of our
expectations.
Here at Washington High School,our expectations are be safe, be
kind, be respectful, beresponsible.
So if you have a student inyour classroom that has been
(09:31):
exhibiting one or more of thoseexpectations, they fill out a
Google form and then we end upfilling out.
I wish I had one here just toshow you off the top, but it
says like right now, january,student of the month.
It has a picture of the student, it has their name and it says
why they were chosen Were theybeing respectful, were they
being kind?
(09:51):
And then we have plasticsleeves outside every classroom
door.
So we have 90 plus studentsthen get acknowledged every
month for following one of theexpectations.
That is so awesome.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
And it's so funny to see that the month it's just one
.
You know that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, we have them throughout the building and it's
funny when kids come in highschool kids, they walk around to
their classes to see if theywere chosen.
And then you hear them talk andyou're like I gotta see what I
can do to be student of themonth this month.
I haven't gotten it yet and Iwant it.
We have kids that have beenchosen by two or three teachers
(10:33):
for the same month and we say gofor it If that student
exhibited all of ourexpectations.
You know.
So it was noticed by three oftheir teachers.
You know, go ahead and pickthem.
So we have students that getpicked two or by two or three
teachers each month and thenwhen we look at the list we're
really hitting a high number ofstudents.
(10:56):
So it's not based off of.
You know, everyone has theirhonors program that are based
off of academics and you havethe sports and they get
recognized for the sports or forour arts here with our being
choir and our art programs.
But this way any student can berecognized just by following
one of those expectations in theclassroom.
(11:17):
So everyone has the opportunityfor that.
But we also, at the end of everymarking period, we run a report
of all students names that havenot received, that were free
from any infractions for thatmarking period.
And then we draw about 40 namesand we give out gift cards to
(11:39):
those students.
And then we acknowledgeattendance is an issue and we do
a Tiger 21.
So every 21 days we'll pullabout 10 students names that
have had perfect attendance forthose 21 days.
And Bell stores were graciousenough, they gave us enough
(12:00):
cards that we could do thatevery 21 days and we call it you
, bell long here with the Bellstores.
So every 21 days we run a reportof students that have perfect
attendance and we give out giftcards for that.
You know we find that's whatstudents up here at this level
want.
They want, you know, gift cardsor gas cards or so we try to do
(12:25):
what we can to meet that.
And then our students turnaround and they also pick a
staff of the month every month.
So we try to acknowledge ourstaff too.
That, you know, chosen by ourstudents only.
There's nobody else in that onethat just our students pick
that.
So we try to do as muchacknowledgement as we can.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, I mean you know you are kids like high school.
Kids care, they care aboutbeing acknowledged and you know
their pictures on the wallgetting the gas cards.
That's huge.
And because I've heard, likeyou know, pbis isn't for high
school and kids don't care.
Well, they certainly care andyou, you are making that
(13:10):
difference.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
They're going to say they don't care, but they do
care.
You know adults are going tosay that too, they go, oh, I
don't care.
But we know, as adults, we likewhen we're recognized for doing
good things, coming to workevery day, turning in our stuff,
you know being a good employee,so I think that's fabulous.
I love the fact that you'reacknowledging to those kids.
(13:34):
And you know, don't thinkanything about trinkets and
rewards with money, becauseDiane and I have talked about
that in our previous podcasts.
People tend to think, oh, Idon't have enough money for PBIS
because I can't buy all thesethings.
But really we've even foundelementary kids.
It's not about the littletrinket, it's about if they can
(13:54):
do the joke of the day or ifthey can eat lunch with a friend
or if they can be Facebookfamous.
You know those are like littlethings we have, but still it's
all just acknowledgement, likeyou said, and it costs us no
money, no money on the wall, youknow outside.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah, that's great, all right, so what are you up?
Go ahead, what are you mostproud of so far with your tier
one, Renee.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Probably the last two years receiving the bronze
award from ODE, that we havedone enough here to be
recognized.
It's not an easy process either.
We never thought that we wouldget to that point of doing it
and again, I love that.
You said you know it doesn'ttake a lot of money.
(14:44):
You know we do a couple offundraisers here and there so we
can get the gift cards and soforth.
But you're exactly right, Kidsjust like to be told that
they're doing a good job hereand we appreciate them being
here and we're glad that they'reat school today.
And you know we want you to besuccessful and really, too, it's
(15:06):
just kind of having that systemin place.
I felt that our staff herethey're great with building
relationships with our students.
Probably the hardest part isjust you have to put it in a
system.
You have to have like anorganized kind of like
documentation of showing whatthat, what you're doing for the
tier one.
(15:26):
So probably the fact that wewere able to get the majority of
our staff here is involved withit.
They're doing a lot of emailand calls home to do more of the
acknowledgement Because youknow, like a high school kid,
especially when you get close toa weekend if you get a call
from a teacher saying how greatthey were in school, that helps
(15:46):
if you want to stay out an extrahour later or get the car this
weekend or be able to see yourfriends, sometimes just telling,
calling home and letting theirparent know.
So it doesn't have to cost alot of money.
And the fact that we were ableto do enough to submit an
application and we've beenbronze now two years in a row
(16:08):
and this year we're we'reforming our tier two team.
So we're looking to go silverhere pretty soon and put
together a tier two where we canstart to take a look at being a
little more aligned with kindof drilling down to more where,
where are those problems at, andkind of getting a different
(16:30):
system in place to help thosestudents out, kind of the
repeated offenders.
So now, what can we do to helpthe repeat offenders to, to
figure it out so they're notmissing school by getting they
feel like they belong here andthey are going to come to school
every day.
So probably the fact that wecan go tier two now was pretty
(16:53):
big for us.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
I like what you talked about about bringing the
whole staff involved in thatphone calls home.
Our next talking point for youwould be like if you had a tip
that you would give to anotherschool you've achieved bronze
for two years now.
Another school, especially ahigh school.
What would be your tip tomaking it be a successful
(17:15):
school-wide tier one initiative?
What would be a tip you wouldgive?
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Start small and slow, but stay consistent.
Everybody's so busy.
If you just say, okay, now,everybody, you start out your
staff meeting in August, we'regoing to do PBIS this year.
You got shut down right away.
So we started out by talkingabout just more or less having
(17:42):
conversation, asking theteachers what do you do now to
acknowledge kids?
If students in your class aredoing good things, what are you
doing?
We just started talking thatway about the acknowledgement.
Then we shared hey, listen,there's something called
positive behavior, interventionand supports, pbis, that we need
to start taking a look at that.
(18:03):
Many of you are already doing.
So let's put a system now inplace and put together what
you're already doing and get itdown on paper Then okay, well,
let's take it a step further.
We take those four expectationsand we've made matrices and
we've had students and staffhelp us.
(18:25):
So when you're in our hallway,you'll see a matrices.
And what does it look like whenyou're in the hallways?
To be safe, to be kind, berespectful and be responsible.
When you go into a restroom,what does that look like?
To be safe, be kind, berespectful, responsible we had
the secretaries help us.
When students or parents orcommunity members come into your
(18:48):
office.
What do you want your office tolook like?
How can you help your office tobe kind, following all the
expectations?
Coach tutor in our weight roomwhat's it look like?
In there?
We talked to the volleyball andbasketball coaches and our PE
teachers.
What does it look like when yougo into the main gym?
(19:08):
What's it look like when youenter our building?
So it's a matter of just thatdiscussion piece.
Then you start out the schoolyear by just having some PD with
the staff.
Nothing in addition, but justkind of the let's look at things
a little bit differently.
So when you come up withclassroom rules and procedures,
(19:32):
let's put them all in a positiveway.
So you have to turn that don'tspeak when others are speaking.
It's more or less let's berespectful while others are
talking, kind of changing thewhole idea when you just work
slow into it.
Then we added okay, we're goingto do a student of the month.
Every staff member is going tochoose a student of the month
(19:55):
and they just have to fill out aGoogle form.
Then we ask okay, students, wewant you to pick a staff of the
month and just fill out thisGoogle form.
So you just got to take it slow, but you got to be consistent.
I do morning announcements andevery morning I say our
expectations and I say what youcan do as a student or a staff
member to follow thoseexpectations.
(20:16):
We're always reminding them beresponsible.
Bring your charge Chromebook toschool every day.
We need you to be kind whileyou're walking in the hallways.
You need to.
So we just do a reminder everyday and it just started to flow,
but it takes time.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
That is a great advice.
A great advice because, yes, ifyou start too fast, people will
shut down on you.
We've talked about that inprevious podcasts too, so you
have hit the points.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
You have Renee, I'm just curious.
So you have been bronze for twoyears, so congratulations on
that.
When did you actually startthis whole process?
Was it two years, three years,four years ago when you first
started talking about it?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
PBIS has really.
It's been almost eight years.
It's kind of been around thatwe really talked about it.
And then, you know, changingyour administration, you
definitely have to have thebacking from top down when
(21:24):
you're doing a lot of this, andwe definitely have that.
So we probably really startedhitting PBIS hard probably about
five years ago.
We're right before COVID andthen, of course, and then the
COVID hits, but that also gets alot.
(21:47):
We could come up with some moreideas of what we're going to do
in the building when everyonecomes back.
So that did give us a littlebit of time to do that.
And then you know, just wheneveryone came back, okay,
everybody, we need to berespectful of everyone's space.
You'll be responsible if you'renot feeling well, and you know,
it just kind of rolled fromthere.
(22:07):
And then we're, you know, withthe help, of course, of our SST
9, you know Valpac and DavidRogers and Debbie Bailey.
They've been incredible withhelping us to do that.
And let us see, listen, you gotthis.
You know, here are some thingsyou can do differently and so
forth.
So we really, right beforeCOVID, started hitting it hard
(22:30):
and then we had a little setbackand then we just kept going.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Well, I think that's yeah, that's, that's great.
You know, we talked in anearlier podcast just about the
longevity of having the samepeople keep people in place, and
it sounds like a lot of yoursuccess, too, is the fact that
you've been in this position fora while, so that you're that
key person to keep theconsistency going.
(22:56):
And then you know, also thesupport of SST 9, we we have had
a lot of support from SST 9over the years and I really
appreciate all they've done forus.
So I just I think you have anamazing story.
You know, I'm sure Diane and Iare going to want to interview
you again.
I really hope you get silver.
Are you applying this year forsilver?
Speaker 3 (23:16):
We're hoping so.
So we had a PD yesterday andwe're putting some stuff in
place, so we'll see, renee,actually was about your next
steps for PBIS.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
but I would say you kind of answered that because
you said you're looking for thattier two, three, tier three
intervention, for you know those, those kiddos that are just not
being able to control theirbehavior that much with with the
tier one intervention.
So would you say that your nextstep is trying to get that tier
two, tier three going?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Absolutely yeah, our tier one.
We pretty much have under, youknow, it's pretty much rolling,
we feel, but we still have thoserepeat offenders.
And so yeah, tier two, silver'sour next endeavor.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
All right, renee, I think we're going to have to
wrap this up.
We're out of time, but it goesso fast.
I hope that you know we want tocertainly talk again, so we'll
be in touch, because you've gota lot of good stuff going on at
that high school and there's alot of high schools that can
definitely learn from you.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
So thank you, love the message from the high school
.
We love.
We love it when high schooljoins, joins in.
So thanks so much, renee, forbeing a guest and thank you,
listeners, for taking the timeto listen to our show.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
We would love to hear from you.
Look for us on Facebook orInstagram, or email us at
pbisjourney2genius at gmailcom.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
This is Diane Farrell , and I'm with.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Diane Ruff and you've been listening to episode 11,
episode 11, talking about tierone at the high school level on
PBIS Journey to Genius.
Welcome to PBIS.
Journey to Genius.
Are you in the process ofimplementing PBIS?
Are you wondering where tostart?
You are in the right place.
We are here to support you.
Stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome everyone.
I'm Diane Farrell and I'm herewith Diane Ruff and we are two
educators from Minerva localschool district and we have been
working together for many, manyyears and we've been working
for PBIS for about the past 14years and we've done a lot of it
in our school and it's gottenawards and recognition and we've
(00:56):
started a podcast and with thatpodcast we hope to share
current issues and behaviormanagement today and how PBIS
can help with those ongoingstruggles.
We are sharing this journeywith you through this weekly
podcast entitled PBIS Journey toGenius.
So who we have in today?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Diane, so today we are talking to Renee Parr,
assistant principal atWashington High School, Maslin,
Ohio.
We are very excited to talk toa high school principal about
PBIS.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Okay, my name is Renee Parr and this is my 32nd
year with Maslin City Schools.
Born and raised in Maslin, leftand went to Bowling Green and
came right back and startedteaching right after graduation,
raised my son here in Maslin.
He played football for theMaslin Tigers and I couldn't see
(01:51):
myself being anywhere else.
That's great, just a great area.
I just can't believe 32 yearshave gone by so far.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Well, diane and I can talk to you about that because
we both have been in one schooldistrict.
We talked about that earlier inour podcast one school district
.
Now I did not tell you this,but I retired last year after 35
years in Minerva local schoolsand Diane is approaching those
numbers herself and we've beentogether all those years in one
(02:22):
school district.
So we've been friends andcolleagues and all kinds of
things.
So we understand what it's liketo come back to your home
district and then love it somuch that you stay there.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Like we understand, and longevity.
The fact that you've been therefor all those years, I think,
has probably benefited you inmaking some change for your
school as the years have gone on.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
So you want to tell us just when your heart gets
into it.
Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Absolutely.
You know, we have at the bottomof our guests.
We ask them about an aha moment.
So in all of your years, your32 years in education, if you
look back teaching,administration, whatever does
some moment come to your mindthat you go oh, this is why I
teach, this is why I'm here.
(03:12):
Do you have an aha moment youcan think of?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
There's just many aha moments that keep reminding me
why I have been doing this for32 years and once you continue a
few more until retirement, it'sjust when you talk to people
and I'm sure you've heard thisbefore too where they say, oh, I
can never do that, I couldn'twork with kids all day like that
, and aren't they this andaren't they that?
(03:39):
And they're all good.
You know, there's so many ahamoments that keeps reminding me
that all kids are good.
They just have bad dayssometimes, like we all do, and
you know the aha moments ofseeing our kids succeed in.
You know we just had thedivision two football champs.
(04:00):
Our cheerleaders just tookfirst place in a cheerleading
competition.
We have our career techprograms, where our kids they
place at the state level and atthe national level.
Our speech and debate.
We just started speech anddebate back up and we already
(04:21):
had someone that placed in thetop three and a speech and
debate tournament.
So there's just so many thingsthat just keep.
When you come here every day,it's like, oh my gosh, they're
achieving, they're wonderful,and yeah, we all have those days
, but we've all had bad days.
They're just all good kids thathave bad days, and I think
(04:42):
there's just so many aha momentsthat keep making me think about
why I'm still in education andnever got out of it.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
It's so great, renee, and to hear all those
accomplishments at the highschool level.
Dinah spent our entire careerat the elementary level, so not
dipping our toes in that highschool world.
We just love it when kids learnto read okay, so that's
exciting for us.
But to hear what you've gonethrough, to see those older kids
accomplished, I mean that isreally special.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
That's really special to me.
It really is, and I love thefact that you're a high school
doing PBIS and that you havereally implemented the tier one.
So do you wanna talk a littlebit about that, your tier one,
and what you're proud of andjust everything that you're
working on?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, our tier one.
It became one of those thingswhere other people were running
PBIS and you heard about PBISbut you thought it was one more
thing that you had to try to doand it's one more thing that the
state wants us to do and youhave to do it.
(05:51):
And when you get past all ofthat and I finally I was the
last person that wanted to doPBIS at a high school level,
cause I at first also was one ofthose that thought, oh, this is
more of an elementary thing and, by the way, we thank you for
making them read or teachingthem how to read, because when
they get to us, we can do theseother things with them.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
So we appreciate that .
I love that you say that,because it's not an elementary
thing, and I just think whatyou're doing at your high school
is amazing, and it is for thehigh school level, it's for the
middle school, so, yes, so keepon telling us more.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And we actually, once we started to get into PBIS, as
it not being another thing.
This is the way we are going todo things.
So you talk about behavior inschools every day.
That's a topic every single dayand, of course, discipline
always comes up.
But we just reversed it and,instead of talking about what
(06:54):
you're not allowed to do hereand what you shouldn't do here,
we just started talking aboutthings that you should do and
the way you should be whileyou're here, just coming here
and being a good person, beingresponsible for your schoolwork.
You need to be responsible tohave your Chromebook.
You need to be respectful byputting your phone away while
you're in the classroom.
If you bump into somebody inthe hallway, be kind and say
(07:18):
excuse me or I'm sorry.
If somebody falls, be kind andhelp them.
We need you to have the AirPodsout of your ears so you can
hear your surroundings, so youcan be safe.
So it's a matter of just turningthat mindset, of just turning
everything around and sayingthis is how you should be and
this is how you should do things, and then, hopefully, those
(07:40):
other behaviors go away.
I like that.
So when we started thinkingabout it that way, it is a
definite high school, becauseit's a lot of those soft skills
that our high school kids needto start.
A lot of them are going out andgetting jobs, they're
interviewing for scholarships,they're in the career tech field
, so they're leaving graduationand going right into the
(08:03):
workforce or when they're goingto college, by learning how to
be.
Those are just life skills andthe soft skills that you need
when you have to work with otherpeople.
So it more or less became notanother thing here, but this is
how we should be doing things.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I love that whole idea of changing your mindset.
I really do like those words.
Those are great words.
What is your acknowledgementsystem whenever you are
rewarding kids for making thosegreat choices and doing the
expectations you've put out?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, that was the hard part up here, because we do
not have a budget.
We have to do our ownfundraising If there's anything
tangible we want to purchase tobe able to give to students.
So that was a hard part.
So we first started trying tothink of ways we could
acknowledge students that didn'tcost money.
So every month we have close to95 staff members in our
(09:09):
building and every month everystaff member chooses a student
of the month for following oneof one or more of our
expectations.
Here at Washington High School,our expectations are be safe, be
kind, be respectful, beresponsible.
So if you have a student inyour classroom that has been
(09:31):
exhibiting one or more of thoseexpectations, they fill out a
Google form and then we end upfilling out.
I wish I had one here just toshow you off the top, but it
says like right now, january,student of the month.
It has a picture of the student, it has their name and it says
why they were chosen Were theybeing respectful, were they
being kind?
(09:51):
And then we have plasticsleeves outside every classroom
door.
So we have 90 plus studentsthen get acknowledged every
month for following one of theexpectations.
That is so awesome.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
And it's so funny to see that the month it's just one
.
You know that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, we have them throughout the building and it's
funny when kids come in highschool kids, they walk around to
their classes to see if theywere chosen.
And then you hear them talk andyou're like I gotta see what I
can do to be student of themonth this month.
I haven't gotten it yet and Iwant it.
We have kids that have beenchosen by two or three teachers
(10:33):
for the same month and we say gofor it If that student
exhibited all of ourexpectations.
You know.
So it was noticed by three oftheir teachers.
You know, go ahead and pickthem.
So we have students that getpicked two or by two or three
teachers each month and thenwhen we look at the list we're
really hitting a high number ofstudents.
(10:56):
So it's not based off of.
You know, everyone has theirhonors program that are based
off of academics and you havethe sports and they get
recognized for the sports or forour arts here with our being
choir and our art programs.
But this way any student can berecognized just by following
one of those expectations in theclassroom.
(11:17):
So everyone has the opportunityfor that.
But we also, at the end of everymarking period, we run a report
of all students names that havenot received, that were free
from any infractions for thatmarking period.
And then we draw about 40 namesand we give out gift cards to
(11:39):
those students.
And then we acknowledgeattendance is an issue and we do
a Tiger 21.
So every 21 days we'll pullabout 10 students names that
have had perfect attendance forthose 21 days.
And Bell stores were graciousenough, they gave us enough
(12:00):
cards that we could do thatevery 21 days and we call it you
, bell long here with the Bellstores.
So every 21 days we run a reportof students that have perfect
attendance and we give out giftcards for that.
You know we find that's whatstudents up here at this level
want.
They want, you know, gift cardsor gas cards or so we try to do
(12:25):
what we can to meet that.
And then our students turnaround and they also pick a
staff of the month every month.
So we try to acknowledge ourstaff too.
That, you know, chosen by ourstudents only.
There's nobody else in that onethat just our students pick
that.
So we try to do as muchacknowledgement as we can.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, I mean you know you are kids like high school.
Kids care, they care aboutbeing acknowledged and you know
their pictures on the wallgetting the gas cards.
That's huge.
And because I've heard, likeyou know, pbis isn't for high
school and kids don't care.
Well, they certainly care andyou, you are making that
(13:10):
difference.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
They're going to say they don't care, but they do
care.
You know adults are going tosay that too, they go, oh, I
don't care.
But we know, as adults, we likewhen we're recognized for doing
good things, coming to workevery day, turning in our stuff,
you know being a good employee,so I think that's fabulous.
I love the fact that you'reacknowledging to those kids.
(13:34):
And you know, don't thinkanything about trinkets and
rewards with money, becauseDiane and I have talked about
that in our previous podcasts.
People tend to think, oh, Idon't have enough money for PBIS
because I can't buy all thesethings.
But really we've even foundelementary kids.
It's not about the littletrinket, it's about if they can
(13:54):
do the joke of the day or ifthey can eat lunch with a friend
or if they can be Facebookfamous.
You know those are like littlethings we have, but still it's
all just acknowledgement, likeyou said, and it costs us no
money, no money on the wall, youknow outside.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah, that's great, all right, so what are you up?
Go ahead, what are you mostproud of so far with your tier
one, Renee.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Probably the last two years receiving the bronze
award from ODE, that we havedone enough here to be
recognized.
It's not an easy process either.
We never thought that we wouldget to that point of doing it
and again, I love that.
You said you know it doesn'ttake a lot of money.
(14:44):
You know we do a couple offundraisers here and there so we
can get the gift cards and soforth.
But you're exactly right, Kidsjust like to be told that
they're doing a good job hereand we appreciate them being
here and we're glad that they'reat school today.
And you know we want you to besuccessful and really, too, it's
(15:06):
just kind of having that systemin place.
I felt that our staff herethey're great with building
relationships with our students.
Probably the hardest part isjust you have to put it in a
system.
You have to have like anorganized kind of like
documentation of showing whatthat, what you're doing for the
tier one.
(15:26):
So probably the fact that wewere able to get the majority of
our staff here is involved withit.
They're doing a lot of emailand calls home to do more of the
acknowledgement Because youknow, like a high school kid,
especially when you get close toa weekend if you get a call
from a teacher saying how greatthey were in school, that helps
(15:46):
if you want to stay out an extrahour later or get the car this
weekend or be able to see yourfriends, sometimes just telling,
calling home and letting theirparent know.
So it doesn't have to cost alot of money.
And the fact that we were ableto do enough to submit an
application and we've beenbronze now two years in a row
(16:08):
and this year we're we'reforming our tier two team.
So we're looking to go silverhere pretty soon and put
together a tier two where we canstart to take a look at being a
little more aligned with kindof drilling down to more where,
where are those problems at, andkind of getting a different
(16:30):
system in place to help thosestudents out, kind of the
repeated offenders.
So now, what can we do to helpthe repeat offenders to, to
figure it out so they're notmissing school by getting they
feel like they belong here andthey are going to come to school
every day.
So probably the fact that wecan go tier two now was pretty
(16:53):
big for us.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
I like what you talked about about bringing the
whole staff involved in thatphone calls home.
Our next talking point for youwould be like if you had a tip
that you would give to anotherschool you've achieved bronze
for two years now.
Another school, especially ahigh school.
What would be your tip tomaking it be a successful
(17:15):
school-wide tier one initiative?
What would be a tip you wouldgive?
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Start small and slow, but stay consistent.
Everybody's so busy.
If you just say, okay, now,everybody, you start out your
staff meeting in August, we'regoing to do PBIS this year.
You got shut down right away.
So we started out by talkingabout just more or less having
(17:42):
conversation, asking theteachers what do you do now to
acknowledge kids?
If students in your class aredoing good things, what are you
doing?
We just started talking thatway about the acknowledgement.
Then we shared hey, listen,there's something called
positive behavior, interventionand supports, pbis, that we need
to start taking a look at that.
(18:03):
Many of you are already doing.
So let's put a system now inplace and put together what
you're already doing and get itdown on paper Then okay, well,
let's take it a step further.
We take those four expectationsand we've made matrices and
we've had students and staffhelp us.
(18:25):
So when you're in our hallway,you'll see a matrices.
And what does it look like whenyou're in the hallways?
To be safe, to be kind, berespectful and be responsible.
When you go into a restroom,what does that look like?
To be safe, be kind, berespectful, responsible we had
the secretaries help us.
When students or parents orcommunity members come into your
(18:48):
office.
What do you want your office tolook like?
How can you help your office tobe kind, following all the
expectations?
Coach tutor in our weight roomwhat's it look like?
In there?
We talked to the volleyball andbasketball coaches and our PE
teachers.
What does it look like when yougo into the main gym?
(19:08):
What's it look like when youenter our building?
So it's a matter of just thatdiscussion piece.
Then you start out the schoolyear by just having some PD with
the staff.
Nothing in addition, but justkind of the let's look at things
a little bit differently.
So when you come up withclassroom rules and procedures,
(19:32):
let's put them all in a positiveway.
So you have to turn that don'tspeak when others are speaking.
It's more or less let's berespectful while others are
talking, kind of changing thewhole idea when you just work
slow into it.
Then we added okay, we're goingto do a student of the month.
Every staff member is going tochoose a student of the month
(19:55):
and they just have to fill out aGoogle form.
Then we ask okay, students, wewant you to pick a staff of the
month and just fill out thisGoogle form.
So you just got to take it slow, but you got to be consistent.
I do morning announcements andevery morning I say our
expectations and I say what youcan do as a student or a staff
member to follow thoseexpectations.
(20:16):
We're always reminding them beresponsible.
Bring your charge Chromebook toschool every day.
We need you to be kind whileyou're walking in the hallways.
You need to.
So we just do a reminder everyday and it just started to flow,
but it takes time.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
That is a great advice.
A great advice because, yes, ifyou start too fast, people will
shut down on you.
We've talked about that inprevious podcasts too, so you
have hit the points.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
You have Renee, I'm just curious.
So you have been bronze for twoyears, so congratulations on
that.
When did you actually startthis whole process?
Was it two years, three years,four years ago when you first
started talking about it?
Speaker 3 (21:03):
PBIS has really.
It's been almost eight years.
It's kind of been around thatwe really talked about it.
And then, you know, changingyour administration, you
definitely have to have thebacking from top down when
(21:24):
you're doing a lot of this, andwe definitely have that.
So we probably really startedhitting PBIS hard probably about
five years ago.
We're right before COVID andthen, of course, and then the
COVID hits, but that also gets alot.
(21:47):
We could come up with some moreideas of what we're going to do
in the building when everyonecomes back.
So that did give us a littlebit of time to do that.
And then you know, just wheneveryone came back, okay,
everybody, we need to berespectful of everyone's space.
You'll be responsible if you'renot feeling well, and you know,
it just kind of rolled fromthere.
(22:07):
And then we're, you know, withthe help, of course, of our SST
9, you know Valpac and DavidRogers and Debbie Bailey.
They've been incredible withhelping us to do that.
And let us see, listen, you gotthis.
You know, here are some thingsyou can do differently and so
forth.
So we really, right beforeCOVID, started hitting it hard
(22:30):
and then we had a little setbackand then we just kept going.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Well, I think that's yeah, that's, that's great.
You know, we talked in anearlier podcast just about the
longevity of having the samepeople keep people in place, and
it sounds like a lot of yoursuccess, too, is the fact that
you've been in this position fora while, so that you're that
key person to keep theconsistency going.
(22:56):
And then you know, also thesupport of SST 9, we we have had
a lot of support from SST 9over the years and I really
appreciate all they've done forus.
So I just I think you have anamazing story.
You know, I'm sure Diane and Iare going to want to interview
you again.
I really hope you get silver.
Are you applying this year forsilver?
Speaker 3 (23:16):
We're hoping so.
So we had a PD yesterday andwe're putting some stuff in
place, so we'll see, renee,actually was about your next
steps for PBIS.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
but I would say you kind of answered that because
you said you're looking for thattier two, three, tier three
intervention, for you know those, those kiddos that are just not
being able to control theirbehavior that much with with the
tier one intervention.
So would you say that your nextstep is trying to get that tier
two, tier three going?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Absolutely yeah, our tier one.
We pretty much have under, youknow, it's pretty much rolling,
we feel, but we still have thoserepeat offenders.
And so yeah, tier two, silver'sour next endeavor.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
All right, renee, I think we're going to have to
wrap this up.
We're out of time, but it goesso fast.
I hope that you know we want tocertainly talk again, so we'll
be in touch, because you've gota lot of good stuff going on at
that high school and there's alot of high schools that can
definitely learn from you.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
So thank you, love the message from the high school
.
We love.
We love it when high schooljoins, joins in.
So thanks so much, renee, forbeing a guest and thank you,
listeners, for taking the timeto listen to our show.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
We would love to hear from you.
Look for us on Facebook orInstagram, or email us at
pbisjourney2genius at gmailcom.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
This is Diane Farrell , and I'm with.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Diane Ruff and you've been listening to episode 11,
episode 11, talking about tierone at the high school level on
PBIS Journey to Genius.
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