At the June Perry School Board meeting, Elementary Principal Ned Menke gave a report about the school’s Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS) data from the past school year, and he said the results were overwhelmingly positive.

Superintendent Lynn Ubben says the PBIS program at the elementary has been a learning experience, where they use common language and expectations for the students and staff on how to deal with behavioral issues. She says it’s taken time for everyone to get on the same page, but this year’s results have proved it’s been working.

“You know, they talked about some discipline things, and if you really looked at it, there’s very few discipline concerns in a building of that size. And it might be maybe some kids that have more behavioral needs that maybe come in more often, but no one was really in there that often. So I think the staff is getting better and better, and they always were good at handling behaviors. But now you have some common expectations and common language, and throughout that big of a building that’s really helped.”

The numbers back up what Ubben claims, as the school saw a two-year low this year, with only 205 principal referrals. Additionally, Menke said 94% of the students had one or no referrals, while 88% had none at all. He pointed out that 40% of the referrals he handled were from seven kids, and even then that meant they saw each of them only once a month. Menke gives a lot of the credit to the teachers and their ability to handle conflict, but he also credits the students for embracing the positive behavior approach.

To hear more about this and other topics from the June Perry School Board meeting, listen to last Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas county program at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.