The Daily Northwestern

One slogan is mounted everywhere at Lincolnwood Elementary School with a host of other positive signs and banners: “Be Safe. Be Ready. Be Respectful.”

Four years ago, the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports Program swept through Evanston/Skokie School District 65 to reform the way teachers interacted with their students. The program trains teachers to reinforce positive and respectful behavior, said Lincolnwood Principal Beth Sagett-Flores. Teachers also model good conduct and help children practice it.

After a year of letting the program start to flounder, Lincolnwood is reinvigorating it, Sagett-Flores said. The program is mandatory for all elementary and middle schools in the district, but Lincolnwood, 2600 Colfax St., is more committed than some schools, she said.

“(The program is) proactive rather than reactive,” she said. “That’s the key here.”

PBIS encourages educators to celebrate all instances of good behavior.

“Walking down the hall, teachers will say (to students), ‘I love the way you’re walking in the hall,'” Sagett-Flores said. “Everyone praises each other.”

On the other hand, inappropriate behaviors have consequences, including parent-teacher conferences, detention and suspension, she said.

She said teachers enter both positive and negative behavior into a computer system, which highlights where problems are concentrated. If there are many problems on the playground, for example, teachers focus on good playground behavior.

Not all parents approve of PBIS, said Kathleen Long, co-president of the Lincolnwood PTA. Although the PTA supports the program, she said some parents don’t like that children are rewarded for expected behavior or that the school devotes time to teaching behavior that they say should have been taught at home.

But third-grade teacher Traci Mull said the program has created a nurturing atmosphere in the class.

“PBIS is about allowing kids to feel good about themselves, be anything, do anything, achieve anything,” Mull said. “It’s setting them up for success.”

In her classroom Thursday, children taped positive notes to themselves on their desks. As they shuffled out the door to catch their school buses after class, Mull called to one boy, “I am so proud of you. You had a fantastic day. Will you tell your momma and daddy?”

Mull said her students frequently encouraged each other.

“If someone gets a problem right, everyone says, ‘Good Job!'” she said. “Or if not, ‘Nice try! You can get it next time!’ Because they hear me say it all the time.”

Teachers can reward students with tickets that are redeemable for prizes, Mull said. In her class, students can receive cookies and desserts, have a one-on-one lunch with her or even get out of a night of homework.

She keeps parents involved by calling them to say how well their children are doing or sending notes and postcards home with the students.

Sagett-Flores said she does not know whether the program shapes behavior in the long term, but she said she thinks the practices it develops should carry over when the students attend middle school.

She also said PBIS has generated school spirit and that behavior improvements translate into academic improvements. She pointed to the rise in the school’s Illinois Standards Achievement Test scores in the past four years as proof the program works.

Reach Jenny Song at [email protected].