Lord of the Flies

New administration was very thoughtful about asking staff what they thought was needed. With surveys, 1:1 and small group discussions and tricks and tools of their experience, three major areas of need were identified.  Boeckman Middle School needed to regain control over student behavior, staff needed something to provide consistency and clear expectations of their duties and the overall climate of our community needed to improve.

Area 1: Student Behavior

To say in the previous two school years that the inmates were running the asylum would be an understatement. Students were left to their own decision making and own devices in common spaces which led to staff avoiding those spaces because they didn’t even want to attempt to correct the behaviors. Students were practicing passive aggressive behaviors, avoidance techniques and full on refusal in classrooms. Deviant behaviors such as major vandalism, pulling of fire alarms and bullying (bullying of students and staff alike) were noticeably increasing to an all time high. The cause of this appeared to be lack of support, lack of follow up and inept approach to student behaviors and consequences on the part of the administration. A lot of why-centered questioning had reduced our “student handbook” to half of its previous thickness. Age-old debates about rules, regulations and expectations for students had been rendered mute by the removal of them from the rulebook altogether. No more dress code, no more food and beverage policy, open carry technology, and “let kids be kids” attitude led to students seeming unsure about boundaries (think: Lord of the Flies). Kids need boundaries. The school community was also left without core values that we had always functioned under.  

Area 1 solutions:

The newly hired administrators took this need seriously. Both had experience with the PBIS program and immediately introduced it to staff.  Staff also went on a field trip to a PBIS school in order to observe and question the program. Almost immediately, the entire school agreed to adopt PBIS structure for behavior. This first provided the BMS Core Values.  All considerations for behavior are based on compassion, integrity, and responsibility. Students and teachers use a new tool called “a Pause and Think” as opposed to sending a “problem” student to the SLC (structured learning center) to be supervised by a warden as was past practice. Students are now given a redirect for an unwelcome behavior and upon second offense, they are issued a reflection sheet by the teacher who was offended that will be filled out by the teacher and student while processing occurs. Then, a follow up phone call or email is made by the offended teacher and the Pause and Think ticket is documented.  There are actions separated into different tiers. Five tier 1 offenses requires follow up with the student by admin and number six requires a meeting with parents at the school. The student handbook has been updated to include omitted expectations such as dress code violations, food and drink policy and a reference to the new behavior plan. In addressing technology use, both phones and iPads (since we are an iPad district), time was taken to give a formal instructed tour of building spaces. Each building space (classroom, common spaces, restrooms, locker rooms, cafeteria, media center, busses, etc) have a technology expectation and basically a stoplight. The green spaces allow open use of technology at any time and include the cafeteria, hallway lockers, commons.  Yellow spaces include classrooms and allow open technology with permission only.  In Red Spaces, technology use is prohibited (gym locker rooms and bathrooms).

Student behaviors have definitely been quelled and it feels like it felt 5 years ago. Students know boundaries and can more freely enjoy their time and space.  Students and staff have core values that they can rally around, base understanding on and be proud of. Technology will forever be present in our lives, so I am once again happy to be in a technology-forward district with clear expectations of usage.  

The personal impact of this problem and solutions:

I identify myself as many others identify me as a teacher who gains very quick rapport and makes sometimes immediate connections with students in my building. I am often tasked with reaching out and connecting with students who are more challenging to connect with.  This is often driven by me, but has also been made known by intentional connections established by caseload workers and administration. So the past couple of years have been exceptionally difficult for me. When not given clear boundaries, students will test behaviors to the point that students who would typically not test boundaries, found themselves testing boundaries even in my class.  I found that it negatively affected my ability to connect with students. Since my connecting with students is my favorite part of this career, and their behaviors were allowed to become worse and worse, last year was my least favorite year of teaching to date.   I decided to blog about this for understanding in Leadership, Motivation, and Connecting.  I am fairly confident that if I see my community going down this path again, I will recognize it in the very early stages and know that I must be vocal in correcting the direction before I find myself going to a job that I don’t enjoy.