At least one time throughout a students high school experience, a student will encounter a moment where a teacher, custodian, dean, etc., tells them what they are doing wrong or what rule they are breaking. Sometimes, getting told what to do or what not to do can make a student continue to do the bad behavior in the IMCs, hallways and cafeterias. A committee of staff at Westside High School is looking to change the way teachers deliver their messages to students about what they are doing wrong in school.

The committee is a part of a $1.2 million counseling grant for the district called the Elementary Secondary School Counselor grant (ESSC). The goal within the grant is to not only help students be more successful academically, but socially and emotionally as well. That’s where the Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (PBIS) comes into play.

The idea behind PBIS is to make everything around Westside more positive. Many teachers at Westside were asked what areas they thought Westside could improve on, and the results came in the hallways and IMCs, not in the classrooms. Many teachers are able to control what behaviors go on inside their classrooms, but it’s what happens outside of their classrooms and outside of school that makes it harder to control and teach students.

There are about 16 people on the committee currently. English instructor Emily Hough is one of them.

“I was quite skeptical at the beginning, but I have seen the research that has been done and I have heard from people who are already in the program and they all speak very highly of it,” Hough said.

Lincoln Southwest is one of many schools that already use PBIS. Some of the committee went to visit this PBIS school to understand what it was all about. At Lincoln Southwest, the committee saw many positive signs that say things like “Thank you for not eating in the hallway,” instead of signs that say, “No eating in the hallway.”

Guidance counselor Theresa Henson, another committee member, stated that this isn’t a program that only a few teachers will try to enforce; this is a program that all teachers in the Westside district will know how to do and they will all know how to deliver their messages.

Although this will be a big challenge and will be difficult to get teachers to do, if they start doing it, it can be impactful on the way students learn and how they behave outside of the classrooms.

“If we can do that and we can change the way people view behavior and the way that they deliver their message when they are talking to students, then it’s going to change everything,” Hough said.

Right now, the committee is in its data collecting phase and it hopes to start the new PBIS program next fall.

For more coverage of the new system, make sure to pick up a copy of the Lance Friday, March 3.