Promoting Positive Behavior in an Oregon High School
Sutherlin High School
Principal: Marty Gary
500 E. Fourth Street, Sutherlin, OR 97479
Phone: (541) 459-9551
Sutherlin High School just began its third year of implementing Positive Behavior Supports. Although integrating a new program into school processes and priorities can be a challenge, Principal Marty Gary said many structures already in place have helped tremendously. The staff has Friday afternoons set aside for planning, and during this time the PBS leadership team meets to determine goals, priorities, lesson planning, incentives, etc.
In thinking about how to “teach” PBS skills, Gary says that “it is a mistake to expect kids to know how to behave” when they start their high school career. At Sutherlin, students spend 24 minutes each day during the first three weeks of school learning about positive behavior. Each teacher is a mentor to groups of 20 students for all four years, and it is within these small groups that the PBS skills are taught. The skills are reinforced every week on Monday mornings with a specific positive behavior lesson. By teaching the skills in small groups that are together consistently, teachers can focus on specific issues that they notice within their groups, as well as issues that have been identified schoolwide, such as tardiness.
A key to making positive behaviors stick with high school students is to relate them to functioning in the adult world of work. With tardiness, the teachers emphasize that we require you to be on time to class just as your future employer will expect you to be on time to work. In fact, says Gary, staff let the students know that when we are contacted by companies to provide references for former or current students, they usually ask about the students' attendance and tardiness record.
The research on PBS indicates that implementation of schoolwide PBS is more effective if students are actively involved. This is certainly the case at Sutherlin. Students in a leadership class learn the PBS skills and then model and promote them to the rest of the students. At freshman orientation, the student leaders talk about behavior expectations, and the students pay attention, more so because they are peers and are role models. “It is powerful when the starting quarterback talks at the orientation about appropriate behavior in the hallways,” says Gary.
The students in the leadership class also have taken an important role in helping to organize a reward system that has meaning for high school students. When staff and students in the leadership class see students applying behaviors they learned, such as wiping their feet before entering the school, being on time to class, they receive “Good Dawg bucks” (the mascot is a bulldog). The tickets are entered into daily, weekly, and monthly drawings. The grand prize is for a new used car, donated by local auto dealerships. Students in the leadership class hand out tickets, which really mean something to the other students, that they are noticing their behavior.
The real reward for staff and students is the change in the school climate. Students and staff have a much more positive attitude about the school, says Gary. Teachers report having fewer behavior problems in class. Teachers generally feel good about teaching at Sutherlin High School and students generally are more motivated to be responsible for their behavior and learning. Of course, there will always be certain situations where behaviors will require stronger disciplinary measures to correct, says Gary, but the focus with PBS is to change behaviors and to teach students why it is important to be at school on time, or why it is important to be polite. 