• What is Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS)?

    PBIS is a process for teaching pro-social behavior and changing undesirable behavior. The goal is to define, teach, and support appropriate behavior so all children feel competent. PBIS is now district-wide in Hazelwood School District. Our program has a PBIS Team (made up of teachers, administrators, social workers, and therapists) that meets monthly to discuss and support the implementation of PBIS in all of the early childhood centers.

     

    What does PBIS look like?

    The Hazelwood Early Childhood PBIS team developed the following four program rules that will be taught to your children:

     

    *TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES *TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER

    *TAKE CARE OF OUR SCHOOL *TAKE CARE OF OUR WORLD

     

    Social skills are just like academic skills-they need to be taught and practiced. We are all working to help children with these important life-long lessons. For example, a teacher might say to her class as they were leaving their room to go in the hallway, “We take care of ourselves when we use our walking feet and keep our hands to ourselves”. Adults model the correct behavior for children and point out the positives when the children are demonstrating their understanding of the rules. This acknowledgement is done in simple statements, “You took care of our school by throwing your paper in the trash can”. Students will earn spots for their class cheetah when they demonstrate these rules. When classrooms have earned the designated number of spots, they will earn a special prize or party. The “PBIS Corner” of the monthly program newsletters and the calendar will have ways that you can help support the learning both at home and school.

     

    We are supporting our PBIS efforts by implementing a social skills curriculum called PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies). This curriculum consists of weekly social skill lessons on a variety of topics, including friendship, following rules, feelings, self-control, and problem solving.

     

    How do we know what your child needs?

    Included in the PATHS curriculum is a behavioral questionnaire that teachers will be completing about your child three times per year. The first time will be completed at the beginning of the school. This will give us valuable information about your child’s strengths and areas that we need to focus on during the school year. The questionnaire will be completed two more times during the school year in order to check progress and guide us in how to best meet the needs of your child. This information will be shared with you during parent/teacher conferences and report card time. The questionnaire looks at skills that will help your child be ready for kindergarten. We are looking for your child to have these skills by the time they go to kindergarten.

     

    If you are interested in more information or have any questions, please do not hesitate to talk with your child’s teacher. Thank you for your support.​

     

    Pursuant to Missouri Senate Bill 638, Section 161.1050, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has established the "Trauma-Informed Schools Initiative."  

    For more information:  https//dese.mo.gov/traumainformed