For the fourth consecutive year, the Fletcher Elementary School has been recognized for its exceptional support of a positive school climate and the social competence of its students.
For three years, the Fletcher School has been designated a Vermont PBIS School of Merit by the Positive Interventions and Supports Team of the Vermont Agency of Education and the UVM Center on Disability and Community Inclusion Collaboration. The designation recognizes the Fletcher School’s unwavering commitment to supporting a positive school climate and the social skills of students, which in turn bolster academic achievements. Prior to being designated a PBIS School of Merit, the Fletcher School was recognized for one year as a PBIS School of Recognition.
Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is an approach to creating school-wide proactive systems that support students’ social-emotional and academic success. The Fletcher School has prioritized strategic, proactive teaching of school-wide behavior expectations and a formal system of behavioral recognitions and supports related to those expectations for all students. The school is in its fourth full year of implementing PBIS.
The Fletcher School has created clear and concise behavior expectations for each physical area of the school, on the school buses and for field trips. These expectations are modeled and taught to students throughout the year. Individual classroom and school-wide successes are recognized and celebrated regularly. The school’s PBIS Team uses data from classroom and office behavior referrals to identify students, location around the school, times of day and other demographics needing additional support. Behavior data is provided to families throughout the year as part of parent conferences. The team is coordinated by School Counselor Sandi Simmons.
In 2014-15, the Fletcher School was designated a Vermont PBIS school of Recognition based on its strategic use of data, celebrating school-wide and individual successes and working to support behavioral challenges, as well as noted decrease in behavior issues overall. For the past three years, the PBIS School of Merit designation has been based on a continuation of that work, as well as receiving exceptional scores on its state-conducted school-wide evaluation of its PBIS implementation.
This year’s award was presented at the Vermont PBIS Leadership forum in Killington. In addition to recognizing successful PBIS schools, the Forum offered a variety of professional development workshops that were attended by the Fletcher School’s team.
The FWSU Story 