Farmington Schools' Behavior Strategy Shows Mid-Year Progress

From feng shui in the cafeteria, to a new dress code for the homecoming dance at , school officials are looking at new strategies to improve behavior and reduce suspensions in high schools. 

School board members heard a mid-year update Tuesday on Positive Behavior Internventions Support (PBIS), a program that teaches and reinforces behavior expectations and provides literacy intervention for students whose academic frustrations may lead them to act out. Each school creates its own matrix around a set of values, which are then communicated throughout the year.

Principal Joe Greene said that North Farmington this year expanded on a simple mantra, "Work hard, and play nice." Three specific statements were added:

• Leave people better than you found them.
• Get better at what you do every day.
• It's not a problem that there is a problem. We judge you by your response to the situation. 

Those values have guided a change in the school's tardy policy, which now ties a loss of privileges with excessive tardiness, and a new dress code for the homecoming dance that had students who were inappropriately dressed donning a pair of shorts, rather than being sent home. 

Farmington High principal Julie Kaminsky said the school has adopted P.E.A.K. (Prepared, Engaged, Accepting and Kind) as its theme. Last year, the approach helped calm traffic in hallways, and this year, it is being rolled out to guide classroom behavior. Kaminski said she stresses building leadership capacity in both staff and students. 

At Harrison, the PBIS theme is "Respect," assistant principal Allyson Robinson said. On the first day of school, she said, teachers and administrators intentionally talked about expected behaviors.

As they took a close look at behavior, "We realized more kids were suspended for cell phone violations than anything else," she said. That led school officials to create an "acceptable use" policy, rather than a ban on electronics. 

Harrison has also implemented a "student of the week" program and is working with students on a redesign of the cafeteria, where a large share of discipline referrals originate, Robinson said.

District PBIS coordinator Todd Symington said looking at the last four years of in-school and out-of-school suspension data shows fewer students are being taken out of school, while in-school suspensions have increased. 

"The assumption is what we're doing is keeping (kids) close to the school environment," he said, adding that provides the opportunity to teach them appropriate behaviors.