What is often the top issue that negatively impacts the culture and climate of a school?
What is the biggest concern of staff, parents, and students when not handled effectively?
What causes teachers and students to choose different schools?
What can easily ruin a school's reputation and brand?
What eats up most of an administrator's time in the day if systems are not implemented?
What do stakeholders complain about the most on social media?
Every school in the world has to handle student behavior issues. The divide is the people that build effective systems that answer and address all the questions listed above and the ones that don't. Hoover Middle School has been blessed to go on a journey that has found successful methods and systems that have created positive behavior outcomes for students. This in turn has created and sustained an exemplary climate and culture. In the blog today, we will share the journey and lessons learned over the past five years.
Most educators would agree that student behaviors are an issue that impacts staff/student morale, employee turnover/retention, and the ability to create high levels of learning. No matter where I have traveled, whether it is an ultra-wealthy suburban district, impoverished rural school, or diverse urban setting, staff have always mentioned student behavior as a top priority. Hoover Middle School, a community of nearly 1000 students that includes many kids from diverse backgrounds and poverty, has experienced the entire range of behavior issues over the past five years. Going back to 2012, our school was experiencing unacceptable levels of distracting and undesirable student behaviors. The biggest reason for students missing instructional time was removal from the class due to inappropriate behaviors. This could be as simple as not following directions to as serious as swearing at a teacher. Even more frustrating was our response which was to assign consequences that usually were ineffective, such as pulling the student from the class or even sending them home. The kids that needed to be in class the most and were thirsting for positive adult attention were the students that were consistently missing the greatest amount instructional time.
The kicker? The administration dealt with behaviors constantly. In fact, there were so many concerns that we never felt like we could ever breathe, let alone focus on things that really mattered like visionary leadership or instruction. Students continued to be naughty, physically aggressive with each other, and sometimes just rude and unpleasant. I know now this was just a small fraction of our students, but it seemed like the whole darn place. I could only imagine how the kids that were doing their jobs must have felt. They came to learn and a portion of our school was ruining the fun for everybody.....kids and teachers. The counterpoint to this? The teachers that were kicking students out of class was hitting an almost comical climax. Some days we would have 15 kids waiting in the counseling center to be addressed by administration. Some of our staff were becoming very efficient baseball umpires and could "eject" students for chewing the wrong brand of bubble gum. Come to think of it, we are a gum free school, so students were definitely being kicked out for that very issue. And just like the kids, it seemed like every staff member was tossing kids. Again, the truth was, it was a small segment of our staff. I could only imagine how the adults who were taking care of behaviors and working at high levels felt. Just like the kids, a small group of staff was ruining the fun for everyone. The administration just processed naughty kids all day. And no matter how hard we worked, we were constantly being reminded by the staff that behavior was "out of control" and the administration was "not supporting them enough". It was a catch 22......the more the administration was reactive to behaviors and sent naughty kids home, the more the staff felt unsupported.
After two years of this, I sat next to my camper at Coralville Reservoir listening to the water rushing from the spillway into the river. This has always been one of the most relaxing places for me. But I wasn't relaxed. It was June, school was out, and I was seriously contemplating leaving administration and going back into teaching instrumental music. I didn't get into this job to deal with naughty behaviors all day and the thought of doing it another year was enough to make me dread August already. Somehow my better angels intervened and in my lawn chair at dusk, I made the decision: I wouldn't leave administration, but instead, find a better way.
I went back to the office a week later and started writing. Out of this week long binge creative session was born our "behavior bible" known as the Hoover Middle School Behavior Handbook. It isn't what you might think. It was definitely not a list of rules and regulations for students (which we already had), but rather a document outlining what the administration expected for adults to follow in handling behaviors and building positive student relationships. The epiphany I had at the spillway a week earlier was this; what can the adults truly control? Themselves. We as an administration were not focused on what mattered most in this behavior equation which was holding adults highly accountable to building strong bonds and correcting students in the context of loving relationships. In addition, this handbook laid out what our non-negotiables were, steps for fixing broken relationships, what to expect FROM administrators, and created a behavior team that would be held accountable for implementing and creating systems within the school to address problem behaviors.
The first day of school, I was more nervous than my first band concert nearly 10 years ago. I knew rolling out this handbook was not going to go well and the staff would feel that the administration was blaming them for all the behavior issues. The truth was we weren't, but we had to address what we could control. After I explained everything in the handbook, it was an interesting response. Some adults (our superstars) breathed a sigh of relief due to the very clear expectations. The staff that were sending disproportionate amounts of naughty kids out of the room for other people to fix were scowling. But as I learned early on as a teacher, the people most uncomfortable change first.
The semester went as expected. The new handbook was tightly enforced by the administration and some of the staff really struggled. They often cited not feeling supported and that the administration was letting kids off way too easy. We continued to see too many students sent from class from a segment of our staff, but our responses to the kids and adults had shifted. A funny thing happened by December. Most of our major behavior issues dried up. Students were infrequently being sent out of class. In addition, the most powerful piece was that the new "behavior team" who was learning to be proactive. The team was working with students that demonstrated an issue with behaviors by creating plans, reward schedules, and implemented other useful strategies to support the staff and kids. In addition, they were providing training and support to struggling staff members on how to better work with challenging kids and behaviors. The administration's ability to focus on true leadership and instruction increased exponentially. A new highlight happened that spring as well: for the first time in the past ten years, Hoover Middle School went an entire month with no student suspended.
By the end of the school year, the staff survey indicated that the majority agreed with how they were being supported by the administration in behavior. In fact, that number was 86%. The previous year it was 33%. The irony? We were working way less at kid issues and spent most of our behavior time enforcing the adult handbook. The previous year all we did was process naughty kids and nobody gave us credit. This year, the teachers were doing a majority of the work to impact behavior and they credited the administration. There is also an accountability piece here as well. Unethical administrators could impact behavior rates by just hiding the issues and not writing the referrals. However, if this was happening, the climate and culture rates of the staff would plunge. Hoover's referral numbers fell dramatically and the staff climate survey rates climbed.
Interestingly enough, by May we did have some key retirements and resignations. I don't know that the new paradigm in behaviors was the only cause, but some staff never did buy into our new way of doing things. Yet, most did pivot to our improved school of thought and the new hires that came on were vetted to make sure they bought into our way of living.
So five years later, where are we? We are proud to have the lowest behavior referral rates in our district and often go weeks and months between sending students home. In recent studying of several suburban and rural schools with much less diversity and poverty, our referral and suspension rates are astronomically low in comparison. Our climate and culture is as high as ever, with 98% of the staff agreeing that Hoover Middle School is a great place to work and live. Our staff turnover is 2% when five years ago it was nearly 10%. And our student perceptions? Our enrollment is over 900 students with families from neighboring districts and other school systems choosing to attend Hoover. In contrast, our enrollment six years ago was just 780 students. Our brand and reputation is also at an all time high which I can safely say is deeply impacted by behaviors and how safe students, staff, and parents feel when they are at the school.
The final outcome can be explained through some heavy academic study by guys named Roger Barker and Herb Wright from the University of Kansas. Barker wrote a book called Ecological Psychology which sets this premise; human behavior is affected by the context. Therefore, all humans will tend to have universal behaviors in a specific settings. For example, most people will have some common themes in their behavior in a fancy restaurant. The behaviors may be different in a variety of settings, but there will be commonality among all the people in the environment whether it is church or a mosh pit at a Slipknot concert. The first few years of positive behaviors, Hoover's staff thought were were just getting lucky with some "easier" groups of kids. But then it became apparent; we had shifted the ecological psychology of the building. Culture is defined by what most of the people do most of the time. Five years ago, the prevailing student thought was to act naughty and receive attention in a negative way. Today the culture is to do your job and get attention in a positive way by being a leader. Being naughty for students now brings a sense of shame from peers that didn't exist five years ago.
Below are the top eleven things (top ten lists are so cliche') we did to positively impact behaviors at Hoover Middle School and build the climate and culture that is enjoyed today.
1. Adult Behavior Handbook: Create a handbook that holds the administration and staff accountable on how behavior is handled and use it to create systems of support.
2. Behavior Leadership Team: Create a behavior leadership team that focuses on training staff, problem solving, and provides a feedback loop on what systems are working or not.
3. Weekly Behavior Meetings: Build in weekly time for the behavior leaders to work with their teams to create proactive plans for students that struggle with behavior.
4. Support your staff: Tell them to call or text when a student STARTS to be naughty and get up to the class as soon as they call. A 30 second conversation with the kid by an administrator or counselor will save 2 hours of issues when the kid get kicked out and needs suspended. The value added benefit? Staff feel supported because of the responsive nature of the administration. As the great Dewitt Jones says, "I'd rather be standing where the missile is launched, not where it lands."
5. Expectation of Kids Staying in Class: Make the non-negotiable with staff that we expect students to be in class and to do everything they can to impact that in a positive way.
6. Support Staff When Kids Can't Stay in Class: When it isn't possible to keep the kid in class because they are disruptive, hold them out the rest of the period or a predetermined amount of time that is known to everybody. Staff hate when a kid leaves to see the administration and then returns 5 minutes later with candy. (Oh, and don't give naughty kids candy.) Predictability is key to staff supporting the systems in place.
7. Continuous Professional Development: We have implemented Love and Logic as well as PBIS. Continue to get your staff improved training on behaviors. When they know better, they do better.
8. Teach Staff what to Expect on Consequences: Reset staff expectations that consequences aren't there to make them feel better. Staff have been trained to not expect a trail of blood when the naughty kid leaves the principal's office. We have also shifted the paradigm that suspension rarely works to stop behaviors. It only gives us time to find a better plan. Therefore, suspension is only for major events like physical aggression, weapons/drugs/alcohol, or swearing at staff. We use this time to create a plan to help ensure it doesn't happen again, not to make the kid feel bad or shamed (which never happens anyways).
9. Always Support With Consequences: When students are naughty, there is always an undesirable consequence. We have an everyday detention room, community service, restitution, social skills classes, and even make students attend school on Saturday. When you are naughty at Hoover Middle School, we don't give you less class by suspending you, we provide more instruction to support and deter the behavior by provide teaching that helps you learn from it.
10. QTIP: We never yell, belittle, or use sarcasm. At the end of the day, we are the adults and they are children. We are trying to teach.....so as hard as it is, we believe in QTIP: quit taking it personally. We must always teach in the context of a loving relationship. Sometimes it takes humor......the other day a student called me something that is usually associated with the male reproductive system. I just politely reminded him that I prefer Richard. In the end, they are children and they will make mistakes.
11. Natural Consequences for Cause and Effect: Use consequences that make sense and are natural to the behavior. Consequences are not punishments, rather they are the natural product of cause and effect. Constantly naughty in the lunch room? Eat in the office for a period of time without your peers. Horseplay in the hallway? Have alternate passing. Skip class? Detention time or come to school on a Saturday. Get into a fight? No contact order with the other party and loss of the unstructured time where it happened. Undesirable consequences and restitution that makes sense impacts behavior. Suspending a kid with no connection to the behavior just reinforces what they need to do to earn vacation time. Also, make sure you are teaching........we have a whole range of social skills classes that we enroll kids with naughty behaviors to teach what the appropriate response should be.
Take care of behaviors and everything else will tend to take care of itself. I didn't get into educational leadership to handle behaviors, but I guarantee it is a first things first priority. If you aren't being proactive to support your kids and staff in this area, it is a sure bet that it will consume a majority of your time as an administrator or teacher. More importantly, you will eventually find yourself in a lawn chair holding a cold beverage contemplating what you really want to do come next August.
"You cannot solve the problem with the same kind of thinking that has created the problem."-Albert Einstein
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