QUESTION 1- How is the district Implementing CPS?
Anyone who has read the book “Lost at School” and attempted an ALSUP or Plan B understands that CPS (as simple as it seems) can very intense and time consuming. It is anything but simple. CPS has been formally added to our SRBI process and has been planned into our PD this year. The main goal for this year is for all staff members in our district to “change their lenses” and understand the philosophy captured by Dr. Greene in Lost at School . The expectation and hope is that Bloomfield staff members will work on building student rapport by practicing the “ Empathy Step” and have conversations with students when they failing to meet expectations. We believe that all children “do well if they can”, and if they can’t it’s our job as educators to figure out what is getting in the way. Shifting the paradigm is the most critical piece to our work.
Some buildings are choosing to move this work forward by doing a formal book study with staff. On page 216 of Lost at School there is discussion on using Plan B as a Community Meeting platform in the classroom. This would also be an implementation strategy for the beginning stages of CPS. Providing opportunities for our students to have rich discourse and help solve problems within their learning community helps builds their higher level thinking skills and is most definitely appropriate for all at the Tier 1 level.
At the Central office level we will continue to identify funding sources in order to bring further training opportunities from Lives in the Balance to the district. We will be identifying a core group of willing participants in each building who are interested in functioning as the Building B Team. They will have access to technical assistance from Lives in the Balance as they work with students and learn to be proficient in the CPS model. The Building B Team’s goal will be to build capacity by training others in the building one student at a time, one teacher at time. This will take time and is not meant to be a process that can be implemented fully in just the first year. Several buildings have already identified a B TEAM and have worked into the schedule a weekly meeting to work on Plan B’s with some of their students.
In the meantime let me clear up some confusing notions and explain how they align:
What about PBIS? Should we still do this?
Absolutely!! Everyone needs positive reinforcement and PBIS is good for climate so please do not feel that we are encouraging you to abandon these efforts.
But remember often times PBIS will fail the students with the most challenging behaviors as it does not take the time to dig to the source of the problem in order to solve it. In some cases for students who struggle to meet expectations it might even make things worse. So PBIS should only be a piece of the whole puzzle. This alone will not solve our unsolved problems.
What FBA’s and BIPs? Do we still do these?
Absolutely yes. These are legal requirements with which we need to comply when we have children who receive 10 days or more of suspension. Some students with IEP’s also require them. Staff that write these documents however are being encourage to incorporate CPS collaboration into the process with students and with parents to create FBA’s and BIPs that are better informed.
What about restorative justice practices and other forms of discipline? Does CPS eliminate this?
All board policies and state regulations governing student discipline will continue to be followed by your building administrators. Restorative Justice practices are supported by the SDE. Research shows that other traditional models of aversive disciplinary practices have limited outcomes for learning and do harm to students. Restorative Justice offers an opportunity for children to learn from their mistakes and make restitution to repair relationships. It supplements the CPS model and is highly encouraged. But again, this is just a piece of the puzzle. Restorative Justice is required as a reactive response. One that we might not have needed if we were able to solve the unsolved problem in the first place.
With CPS the hope is that once we all have the skill set to respond in a more proactive manner with our students, the need for these items above will become significantly less. It is the hope of the B Team steering committee that the entire district is proficient and practicing CPS actively with all students within three years. We are invested in continuing to support you as best we can. Your feedback is important to us. We want to thank those of you who have shared your experiences, insights, research and practice videos!!!!! We will continue to roll these out to the district.