Our team works well because we have been very fortunate to have had the same members for the past 3 years. We all believe in the PBS philosophy and serve as role models for students and staff in our building. For example, we all speak the same “PBS language” which is taught to our staff and consequently, taught to all students. They learn our ROAR expectations beginning the first day of school and throughout the year and are able to cite and explain our ROAR expectations. The consistency of team members has enabled us to review and improve our plan each year. We have been fortunate to have had the same administration, as well, which supports us 100%. The enthusiasm of our assistant principal is the driving force of our team. Under her leadership, we constantly review and modify our plan to truly embed PBS into our curriculum and the culture of our elementary school. All input from our core and peripheral team members are welcomed and valued at our bi-monthly and monthly PBS meetings. We also have a very active PTO that has worked closely with us to raise funds for student incentives. Our core team membership consists of a primary and intermediate teacher, guidance counselor, media specialist and a primary and an intermediate ESE teacher (three of these teachers are National Board Certified). Our peripheral team includes teachers from each grade level, as well as maintenance, paraprofessionals and a parent.

Our plan is driven by utilizing monthly data results to modify and adjust areas of concern in our building. For example, last year’s data indicated a “spike” with respect to ODR/Day/Month in the months of December, February and early May; therefore the team decided to implement engaging school-wide activities that motivate students to demonstrate the ROAR expectations. Thus far this year, we have observed a significant decrease in the number of referrals for those months mentioned. The mid-year 2006-2007 school year “out of school suspension referral report” indicate that a school with the enrollment of 1220 students would typically expect 69 out of school suspensions, whereas we have had only 11suspensions (an 84% difference). This data confirmed to our team that the changes we have implemented this year have been successful! Please see attached data. Our PBS Coach provides us with monthly detailed reports which we review and discuss to determine our activities (ex, holiday raffle, testing raffle, nine week school wide events, PBS carnival).

PBS meeting minutes are emailed to all staff members and detailed memos are given regarding school wide events (communication occurs at least every two weeks). Data is discussed at monthly faculty meetings to share our success and determine areas to improve upon; staff is always encouraged to voice their ideas and/or opinions. Current PBS activities are discussed at staff meetings, as well, to clarify any questions. Our ROAR expectations are reviewed every morning on closed circuit television by our student morning news team. ROAR expectations and store items are scrolled on the television throughout the day and ROAR posters, outlining our expectations, are found in every classroom and throughout the building. A PBS Comment/Suggestion box is located in the teacher workroom for staff to address concerns/comments anonymously. We also conduct a staff survey twice a year to assess and determine where our needs are regarding staff understanding of the PBS plan. This year we had two workshops (beginning of the year and mid year) to introduce our PBS plan to new staff members.

Our team is motivated to increase student achievement at Windmill Point and we are aware that in order to do so, we must address student behavior simultaneously. Last year our school achieved its’ first school-wide “A”, which was our second year implementing PBS. We attribute this success, in part, to our PBS plan because our focus was on student performance and not on discipline. Our team believes in this philosophy and focuses our energy on how to provide a positive learning environment for our students and staff. Our team also has excellent communication skills; we value each person’s opinion and ideas and work together to accomplish our goals. Due to the diverse expertise and strengths of our members, we are able to problem solve effectively and generate new ideas to promote our plan. As mentioned previously, the leadership under our assistant principal and our facilitator keeps our team motivated and enthusiastic, focused on our goals and problem solve issues that arise in a positive format.

Our team does an excellent job educating our staff and students about ROAR, as a result we have the majority of staff that “buys into” our plan. We currently have 106 staff members employed at our school. Our plan is inclusive of all staff, regardless of their position. We utilize data to drive decision making that will best benefit student academic progress, as mentioned above. This year we also expanded our school-wide store with student selected items that can be purchased with our “wildcat cash”. A “PBS catalog” was created in which students learn life skills by shopping through the catalog (ie, filling out forms and math skills such as addition and multiplication). This has proven to be an effective way to address the 1,238 students in our building. Communication is excellent between the core team and staff; we believe that teachers need to be reinforced and encouraged, as well as the students. Therefore we strive to promote open dialogue and reward teachers with a “teacher” store as well. Our team is currently at the point of addressing the needs of specific students in our building. As a result, our guidance counselor, who is also a PBS core member, has targeted a group of kindergarteners to focus on anger management issues. She also works closely with an outside agency that counsels students who are separated from their parents.

Due to the increasing enrollment in our school, we realized last year that we needed to develop a way to ensure that all students had equal access to our school-wide store. First we decided to expand our store and relocate it to a more visible sight. Then a PBS Catalog was created, in which students “shop” every two weeks, submit an order form that is then filled by selected fifth grade students, under the supervision of our PBS facilitator. Our school has also experienced new staff members that have been hired throughout the year, therefore we found it necessary to meet their needs concerning PBS and have a mid-year staff orientation. This proved to be very helpful in clarifying misconceptions about PBS. The misuse of giving wildcat cash came to our attention mid-year (ie, taking money away once students earned it), so at a recent faculty meeting we reviewed the purpose of PBS, what our goals are for Windmill Point students and modeled how to reward student behavior. We stressed that the cash does not and should not be given every time a student follows an expectation, that giving verbal praise is just as important!

We are aware that there are certain students in our building that continue to have difficulties, despite our best efforts with the PBS plan. Due to the strong foundation of our plan and careful data observations, we believe we are ready to move to the next level and address the needs of these students. We plan to implement proactive ways to avoid problematic behaviors from escalating to this point. In order to do so, three of our core team members will attend workshops, provided by USF in April that addresses the individual and targeted groups that we are concerned about in our building. This year we have observed an increase in the number of primary students displaying disruptive behaviors. Consequently, one of our core members attended a recent conference, “Addressing Challenging Behavior” (National Institute on Effective Practices-Supporting Young Children’s Social/Emotional Development). It is our hope that these trainings will provide us with new alternatives to approach our problematic students.