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Greenville City Schools
Positive Behavior Intervention Systems
Jake Fitzgerald, Asst. Principal GES
In 2018, the Ohio Department of Education began a new system for our
state called the Positive Behavior Intervention System (PBIS). Although
this is now almost 3 years old, many people are still unaware of what
it is. This article is written with the intent of educating our
district families about the background of PBIS, the implementation of
the system at Greenville and how it is continuing to be used within our
district.
According to the State of Ohio Department of Education (ODE), their
purpose for trying to institute a PBIS system was to create a
“schoolwide systematic approach to embed evidence-based practices and
data-driven decision-making to improve school climate and culture to
achieve improved academic and social outcomes and increase learning for
all students”. This was adopted in November of 2018, by then Gov.
Kasich, in House Bill 318. In this bill, schools were required to
provide professional developments and/or state trainings to help train
teachers. PBIS was required to be implemented by every school in the
2019-2020 school year.
Greenville was able to attack this head on and instituted a PBIS system
called PAX. PAX is a universal preventative intervention system focused
on student ownership of behavior. Almost all kindergarten – fourth
grade teachers were sent to be PAX trained. While getting teachers and
students to change their mind set from a punishment system to a
positive behavior system is not always easy, Greenville Elementary has
had great student and teacher buy in. This has created a positive
student and teacher community focused on doing good things.
As you enter our Elementary today, you will notice the elements of PAX
everywhere. You will see teachers focusing on praising students for
doing the correct things and many times their verbal praise is coupled
with incentives. Some teachers give their own form of prizes called
“Granny’s Wacky Prizes”. Another incentive you may see involves popcorn
tickets being given to those with positive behavior. Popcorn tickets
are then put into their classroom bucket, giving them a chance in a
drawing to receive a bag of popcorn from the concession stands on
Fridays.
However, the prize most loved is being a “Wave Wonder”. Each month, one
student from each class is chosen to have a special lunch with Mr.
Fitzgerald and Mrs. Copas, and then Mr. Fitzgerald plays a game with
those kids after their lunch. One student said, “Being a Wave Wonder
was already the best thing of this school year!”. Another student said,
“It was so much fun to be able to spend time with Mrs. Copas and Mr.
Fitz. I loved playing Zombie tag with him!”. As you can tell, PBIS and
PAX are no longer just an intervention system but rather have become
the driving force for the positive culture of our school.
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