Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 20

Highlight: Pioneer High School
Woodland Joint Unified School District
School snapshot: Pioneer High School (PHS), located in Woodland, CA in the Woodland Joint Unified School District,
serves 1,585 students. 60% of the schools’ students are Latino, 26% are white, and 10% are Asian. African American, American
Indian, and multiracial students each account for 1% or less of the school population. Before the implementation of SWPBIS
and youth development strategies, PHS suffered from tensions between student members of rival gangs and high levels of
suspension. Since the implementation of these alternative discipline practices, there have been no gang-related fights at the
school and suspensions have gone down significantly. The first four years of implementation were led by former Principal Kerry
Callahan. This year implementation is being led by Principal Angelina Arias.
Why did you decide to implement a Schoolwide Positive Behavior Intervention and
Support (SWPBIS) system for your school?
Former Principal Kerry Callahan: During my
second year as Principal, the Woodland Joint Unified
School District (WJUSD) Director of Student
Services, Debbie Morris, was engaged in PBIS,
through Placer County Office of Education (PCOE)
and the Building Effective Communities Together
(BEST) curriculum, which is based on the School
Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports
model developed at the University of Oregon and
the National Center on PBIS (www.pbis.org). We
were introduced to BEST at a curriculum instruction
meeting which all principals attend. Schools were
given the choice whether to be part of phase one, and
we jumped right on.

What was the climate of the school like
before you implemented the PBIS system?
Former Principal Kerry Callahan: There were a
lot of gang issues at the school. The first year I was
here, there was a huge riot. We had a big issue with
bystanders. There were only ten kids actually in the
fight but we were unable to break it up because of all
the kids around who were excited to watch. That’s a
school climate issue. So we had to deal with it.
Our suspensions were mostly to Latino boys, some of
the boys were in special education and some of those
in special education were emotionally disturbed.
About six students per day were being suspended,
primarily for drugs, fights and “willful defiance.”
Parent involvement was pretty non-existent. There
How we can fix school discipline

were 60 members of the Parent Teacher Association
(PTA), but only about three would come to meetings.
Additionally, there were tensions between students
and teachers. For instance, we have a rule that no
cell phones are allowed on campus and one student
had his cell phone out in class but told the teacher it
was an emergency. The teacher let him use his cell
phone, only to find out that the kid called his mother
to bring his tennis shoes for gym. Of course, the
teacher referred him to the office.

When did you put in place alternative
discipline practices and can you describe
some of them?
Former Principal Kerry Callahan: In 2010-2011,
we made several significant changes. We did a
training to get every teacher in the school on the
same page and then implemented SWPBIS with the
9th grade team. We taught the 9th graders the three
rules --- be safe, be respectful and be responsible.
Teachers actively pushed strategies, such as creating
classroom or hallway rules that fit our big three rules
and sending home positive notes. We also actively
reinforced good ninth grade behavior with Patriot
Pats, play money that can be redeemed for prizes,
which are given to a student who is exhibiting
positive behavior. By the time Year 1 of PBIS was over,
we saw much more parent involvement because we
had had hundreds of parent conferences. We utilized
our three tiered intervention protocol.
In 2011-12, after learning all the lessons we learned in
Year 1, we made adjustments and rolled out SWPBIS
systemically to all grades.