The Stewart Family Synergy Team (11.7.2019)

The Stewart Family is engaged in a unique partnership with Indiana University Bloomington’s Center on Education and Lifelong Learning to focus on school-wide discipline using the PBIS Framework. Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a systems approach for establishing the social culture and individualized supports needed for all students to achieve both social and academic success. PBIS is a profound focus on the behaviors you want to see through by prioritizing interventions, developing effective “consequences” and clarifying, teaching and reinforcing desired behaviors.

The Stewart Family refers to its PBIS team as The Synergy Team. The Synergy Team consists of thirteen members from the school community. The team has representatives from kindergarten through fifth grade, specials teachers, the school counselor and the principal. The Synergy Team meets twice a month to develop the PBIS plan, review data and analyze the culture of The Stewart Family.

Seven members of The Synergy Team travel to Indiana University South Bend to participate in six sessions with trainers from Indiana University Bloomington. The sessions focus on developing a multi-year plan for planning, implementing and sustaining the PBIS initiative. The sessions also allow The Synergy Team to further explore culture, implicit bias, race and privilege, and responding to behavioral errors through restorative practices.
The Stewart Family counselor, Mrs. Dayna Galloway, serves as the coach for The Synergy Team. Mrs. Galloway is the heart and soul of The Stewart Family’s PBIS initiative, leading The Synergy Team’s work and keeping the team in close contact with the staff, students and families. She attends five additional training days with the trainers from Indiana University Bloomington and works diligently to promote the new learning The Stewart Family is acquiring.

The Synergy Team has worked collaboratively with The Stewart staff and students to develop five school-wide expectations. Our school-wide expectations are the social principles that guide the behavior of everyone in the school. The Synergy Team and the Stewart staff developed the five expectations of P.R.I.D.E.-- Perseverance, Respect, Integrity, Dedication and Empathy. “The Stewart Family has P.R.I.D.E.!” 

The Synergy Team then supported the students at Stewart to create definitions for each expectation.

• Perseverance: We ignore our “quit button” when something is hard.
  
• Respect: We treat people and things with kindness and care.
  
• Integrity: We do what is right, even when no one is watching.
  
• Dedication: We try our best to show it matters.
  
• Empathy: We understand feelings and how our actions and words have power.
  

The Synergy Team is now tasked with developing a school-wide expectations rubric to set clear, culturally responsive behavior rules for the entire Stewart Family. The Synergy Team will also create lesson plans to teach the behavior rules, a reinforcement system to recognize our P.R.I.D.E., and create an adult responsibilities matrix to focus on active supervision. The Stewart Family will continue to grow, develop and reflect upon our systems, data and practices to support student behavior, build cultural knowledge and self-awareness, promote decision-making and to develop social competence and academic achievement.