OakLeaf HS

Oakleaf High School is home to approximately 2,800 students in the Orange Park, Florida community. Since 2018, reducing lost instructional time due to undesired behaviors has been a priority. To achieve this goal, the PBIS team, with support from school leadership, has worked diligently to increase positive behavior structures across campus while identifying underlying causes of unwanted behaviors, such as a lack of self-awareness, responsible decision making, and connectedness. The PBIS team developed a reward system to recognize positive behavior, created an action committee focused on integrating social/emotional learning (SEL) throughout the culture of the school, and added student voice to implementation plans. 

At Oakleaf High School (OHS), Knight Bingo has become a staple in recognizing teachers and students who exhibit traits of Knight PRIDE, which stands for Positivity, Respect, Integrity, Drive, and Engagement. OHS uses Knight Bingo to cultivate a positive atmosphere between students, teachers, and all staff members, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and our custodial team. To do so, we utilize student-designed and created buttons that represent each PRIDE expectation and positive mindset connected to our SEL curriculum, 7 Mindsets. Once students and staff members have earned nine buttons, it will fill the “K” on our Knight Bingo board. Then, they choose from a selection of rewards that includes gift cards, coffee mugs, tumblers, and other items donated by our community partnerships. In addition to our buttons and the Knight Bingo initiative, nominations for our staff members and student of the week are based on those acknowledgments. 

Connecting the 7 Mindsets Curriculum with our PBIS structures is important at OHS. Too often, these concepts are discussed independently of each other. In reality, their connection and relationship is paramount in supporting the academic success of our students here at Oakleaf High School. SEL supports and the PBIS mentality have become central to the way we view student behavior and performance in the classroom. Anywhere you look, social/emotional learning (SEL) has become commonplace in and outside the classroom walls at OHS. Knights can scan a QR code on the wall for a positive message or walk past a decorated door displaying our PRIDE expectations. In hallways, students can observe a piece of artwork designed collaboratively across 9 different art classes and CTE content areas displaying how the arts can positively impact students. Students can also actively participate in our student-led SEL action team responsible for modeling the characteristics and traits found in our 7 Mindsets curriculum. You see examples of positivity, respect, integrity, drive, and engagement in the posters hung in the hallway, in activities and lessons done in the classroom, and you can hear it in the conversations between staff or students. The SEL curriculum itself, linked to our expectations, is taught during our scheduled enrichment time 5th period and a mindset declared by our principal each morning during announcements. Evidence that PBIS and SEL is integrated into the fabric of our school culture and climate can be found everywhere at OHS. 

This year, incorporating student voice and perspective both in our SEL efforts and in our PBIS structures was an important objective moving forward. Students’ participation and leadership were imperative in strengthening our school community. The Student Ambassadors help promote the 7 Mindsets through collaborative planning with the PBIS team, which gives voice to their peers while fostering positive interactions across campus. Through their efforts, the connections between students, faculty/staff, and the community have helped build rapport and promote school connectedness, while promoting a safe and civil learning environment.

While these efforts have been successful in reducing the number of office discipline referrals (ODRs) by 29% since 2018, our largest celebration is that students are learning valuable skills that go beyond high school academics. Creating a school culture that promotes student self-worth, connectedness, and responsible decision-making is an environment that will continue to support our students well beyond their time as an Oakleaf Knight. 

OHS Bus Drivers as Staff Members of the Week

Knight Pride Bingo Winner photos are placed in this template and posted to the school’s social media platforms

Running Away from Coronavirus

Mary Persons High School, Forsyth, Georgia

When Mary Persons High School (MPHS) Principal Dr. Jim Finch learned it was his high school’s year to roll out PBIS in their district-wide school climate improvement initiative, he was concerned.  He knew his staff wasn’t ready or receptive for another new thing.  He knew that regardless of the initiative, faculty buy-in would be critical to making this good school an even better one, especially with PBIS in a high school.

Anticipating these rollout challenges, Dr. Finch asked the superintendent if he could “go slow” and have a year of readiness to form the right team who would study their data and work with the state PBIS leaders to form a support plan. During that year, MPHS used School-wide Information System (SWIS) as their progress monitoring tool and began to analyze discipline trends in their school. They conducted a root cause analysis for much of their discipline which centered on tardiness to school and tardiness to class. They began to set target goals.

Mary Persons High School joined 8 other Georgia high schools for the state’s first secondary-only PBIS training in May of 2012. Mary Persons, with a year of readiness under their belt, was skeptical but ready and committed. During this training, they created the Mary Persons matrix of expectations that was to be rolled out to faculty, staff, students, and parents in August 2012.

By going through the training, the faculty and staff learned a lot about themselves and their school. What they learned was what a lot of school staffs already know, yet fail to realize. That is, that Mary Persons is a typical high school whose campus life usually revolves around the 3 A’s: Academics, Arts, and Athletics. The sustainability of PBIS at Mary Persons has built a sense of belonging to an already close knit-community. From the valedictorian to the all-state athlete to the drum major, PBIS has helped bring together groups of students from all walks of campus life and the unique culture of inclusion in this school’s community is a sense of belonging and identity that all high schools crave.

The evolution of PBIS at MPHS (better known as CHAMP at Mary Persons--Courteous, Honorable, Accountable, Motivated, Prepared) has not been without challenges. Cynicism and jaded faculty were challenges for buy-in and continuing efforts. But with strategic and operational planning that also involved students, Mary Persons has been able to continue to develop a culture and climate at a school that champions inclusion of all types of students while building capacity for student leaders.

Jomari Jackson was one of those student leaders who helped bring about the student voice for CHAMP at MPHS. Serving on Dr. Finch’s Student Focus Group, Jomari was able to contribute to future reward systems, provide feedback on what was working (or not working!), and keep the principal apprised of the pulse of the school and its climate.

“CHAMP helped bring a sense of community to Mary Persons in ways that were more than just football Friday nights”, said Jomari Jackson. “CHAMP helped set expectations and was a way to include and reward all types of students. CHAMP really helped engage more of our student body into what was going on at MPHS--not just the athlete, the artist, or the college-bound student--but ALL students.”

“There are a lot of improvements we have made with CHAMP over the past six years”, said Principal, Dr. Jim Finch. “And keep in mind--Mary Persons was not a school that needed a huge makeover or was desperate for a total rehaul of its school climate. But I think the biggest piece of what we’ve done with PBIS is that we have listened to our students, championed our students, and ultimately, brought a lot of students together who otherwise would not have intersected very much. Recognizing and rewarding academicians, athletes, and artists have helped accomplish the huge sense of inclusion and community at Mary Persons High School.”

Seven years later, MPHS is the most celebrated PBIS high school in Georgia.  Mary Persons High School has built a true school community of CHAMP(s)!

Cocoa High School first year of implementation

Cocoa High is in its first year of implementing PBIS

 and so far we are LOVING it!

Cocoa High is located just inland of Cocoa Beach, FL and is a combination school for grades 7-12. We are the only Title I high school in our district with almost 80% of our students receiving free and reduced lunch benefits. Last year Cocoa experienced a large upswing in discipline referrals and discipline incidents.   There were over 3600 discipline referrals and only had 1500 students, this resulted in more than 2 referrals per student! We decided we "had enough and wanted to take our school back".  After some research, we decided to implement School-Wide PBIS. 

Since teachers are often frustrated with all of the new initiatives that get started every year (and never followed through with), we knew we had to find a way to ensure that this was not something else being shoved at teachers and would soon be forgotten.  Rather, we wanted something that was long-term and meaningful, so we decided to make this a culture shift. We wanted to re-install Tiger PRIDE in all our students, faculty, staff, families, and community. This led to Tiger PRIDE becoming our acronym for our Tier I expectations; Perseverance, Respect, Integrity, Discipline, and Empathy.

 We launched our PBIS initiative during pre-planning by sharing last year’s discipline data, the district’s new discipline plan, followed by the PBIS team’s Tiger PRIDE culture shift. We have since followed this up with several trainings on ways to implement Tiger PRIDE in the classroom including how to teach each expectation.  This included setting up shared Google Folders with lesson plans, videos, and bell ringer ideas for each expectation.  We also had collaborative discussions dissecting the discipline data. We approached PBIS in this manner in the hopes of increasing teacher buy-in and encouraging a sustainable culture shift across all grade levels. We put together packets of information on the culture shift for everyone including our custodians and bus drives and gave them stacks of Tiger PRIDE tickets to give to students who exemplify the expectations.

The teachers were encouraged to develop their own reward system using Tiger PRIDE tickets in their classrooms and as a school we created several ways for students to redeem their tickets. We purchased a wheel that we can change (write on/wipe off) and weekly students can spin to win with two Tiger PRIDE tickets; recently we opened a school store offering school supplies and various donated items that can be purchased with Tiger PRIDE tickets. The team has put together four large events for students to “buy out” of class to attend: snow cone party, Winter Carnival, field day, and movie and popcorn afternoon. Our first event had only about 60 students attend and our Winter Carnival had almost 600 students attend!

We have seen a dramatic decrease in discipline referrals as a result. With an almost 80% decrease in referrals for classroom disruption/misconduct and a 40% decrease in the number of students assigned to In-School Suspension in the first few months of school (August through November). We are still experiencing discipline issues and our numbers may not be that amazing at the end of the school year but we know that the culture shift is taking hold and the students and teachers are noticing the difference that a little Tiger PRIDE can make.

Submitted by: Cathy Gahres

Tiger PRIDE – PBIS School Coordinator

Title I Coordinator

NHS Co-Sponsor

Middle School Athletic Director

High School Assistant Athletic Director