Responsive Classroom

The White Plains Public Schools District has made a commitment to improve the current behavior management systems being used in schools.  Mamaroneck Avenue School was provided with the opportunity to participate in a training that promotes school wide positive behavior.  Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports is referred to as PBIS.  It is not a program, but a framework for designing and implementing proactive and preventative interventions.

 A PBIS team of approximately 7 staff members are attending five days of intensive training during this school year.  The team is comprised of administrators, regular and special education teachers and a teaching assistant.  They, in turn, will work with the rest of the school staff to make sure that our intervention strategies are consistent throughout the school.

 MAS will focuses on three to five behavioral expectations that are positively stated and easy to remember.  In other words, rather than telling students what not to do, we will focus on the preferred behaviors.  We will be developing a universal discipline system by selecting expectations, transforming expectations into teachable behaviors, developing a system of acknowledgements and consequences, and creating a data management system for tracking behavioral outcomes.

As we move forward with PBIS, we are looking forward to providing a framework that promotes proactive behaviors with an emphasis on teaching important life skills.  We will outline this in more detail next year as we begin full implementation.