Parent Teacher Magazine Union County Public Schools Sept/Oct 2017 | Page 14
Forest Hills and Monroe clusters explore new approaches to school discipline
Every school administrator and teacher
knows there is no such thing as a “one
size fits all” approach to disciplining
students. That’s why school staff from
the Monroe and Forest Hills clusters
recently attended the Safe & Civil Schools
Foundations training, a comprehensive
approach to managing student behavior
that incorporates best practices based on
30 years of research.
“The program is structured to help
schools develop a school-wide system
that supports students basically from the
time they enter school to the time they
leave. We want to make sure that all of
our schools are safe and healthy,” said
Brad Breedlove, UCPS Director of School
Performance. “It’s really a tool that allows
administrators and teachers to assess how
their schools are and determine if they
have the right elements in place to support
students.”
The training builds on a district-
wide focus of reducing the number of
suspensions in schools. An emphasis on
data – which includes in-depth surveys –
will also be used to help the staff create
school discipline plans.
“We have to ask, what are we doing
proactively as a school to engage
students, engage faculty and
build a better culture within our
schools?” Breedlove said. “This
is all about positive behaviors,
rewarding those behaviors
and setting students up to be
successful.”
Rocky River Elementary teacher
Heather Leonall, who attended
the training said, “When talking
School staff from the Monroe and Forest Hills
about student success, behavior is a clusters recently attended the Safe & Civil Schools
huge piece of that. And if you don’t Foundations training, where they discussed
managing student behavior through positive
have behavior under control then
reinforcement.
the academics are not going to be
there,” Leonall said. “If you have a
school culture as well as student success
good behavior management system where
and outcomes.
kids feel good about themselves and the
“That includes increasing student
adults that are around them, then you’re
attendance and student achievement as
going to have those academic gains that
well as a decreasing student discipline
you are looking for.”
issues for those schools who have gone
What’s nice about the training,
through Foundations training,” he said.
Breedlove added, is that it includes
“So all three of those phases are what we
staff from elementary, middle and high
really want to improve.”
schools, a move that may ultimately lead
—This article was provided by the Union
the schools to adopt similar behavior
County Public Schools Communications
management strategies. By the end of the
Office.
multi-year training, Breedlove said, UCPS’
collective goal is to continue to improve
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12 • Sept/Oct 2017 • Parent Teacher Magazine