WESTFIELD – Monday night’s School Committee meeting opened with the school song, “Peace like a river,” by the Newcomer’s Program at Highland Elementary School. Teacher Claire Howard and school nurse Mrs. Lavoie on guitar led the children first in practice on the grass, then inside to a packed house. The students introduced themselves, where they were from, and what languages they speak, which included Nepali, Arabic, Swahili, and Spanish along with English.
The School Committee then heard a report on the progress of the Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (PBIS) program which was
Students from the Newcomer’s Program at Highland Elementary School practice their song outside before entertaining the School Committee on Tuesday. (Photo by Amy Porter)
brought to Westfield Public Schools in 2013 in partnership with the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
The program is designed to assist teachers with the social and emotional needs of children. Dr. Sara Whitcomb from UMass’ Center for Research on Families said PBIS is not a curriculum or a packaged program, but a framework to guide the schools. UMass provided ongoing training and support to teachers over the last two years to help them provide a system-wide problem-solving approach to student behavior.
“The schools have a lot of good practices in place,” Whitcomb said. She said the goals of the program include 80% of the students being able to articulate what behaviors are expected in school and for positive interactions among adults and students to exceed negative ones. She said one elementary school reported 17% less disciplinary actions following the program’s implementation.
“It is a complete shift in the way we do things,” said Superintendent Dr. Suzanne Scallion, who brought the program to the schools. She explained that teachers have to explicitly teach 5-year-olds how to eat in a lunchroom, for example, because they never have before coming to school.
Betsy Philpot, district liaison for the program, also gave as an example students being explicitly told what language is permitted in school, even if looser language is allowed in their homes.
Scallion said this was a case of putting an idea out there, and having teachers and the administration run with it. She said the result has been “less behavioral stuff to manage in the classroom.”
In other business, the School Committee approved several transfers within the budget including savings from the energy costs due to the mild winter which will help to pay deficits in other areas, such as severance and electricity.
Rix said the district was close to $100,000 less in energy savings last year, also helped by burning more oil than natural gas last year, because it was “cheaper.” They also came in under budget on unemployment, which started the fiscal year at $22,000 per month, and is down to $4,000 per month this spring.
“This year we’re tighter in every line,” Rix added.
He said the district is trying to work with the School Committee earlier to avoid laying off teachers, who will then be called back to work. “If we lay them off and don’t call them back before the end of the month, they can collect until school starts on August 27,” Rix said.
“If we’re giving out these pink slips, it is heartbreaking,” Scallion said. “We’re losing people, and we encumber costs.”
The School Committee will meet with the City Council Finance sub-Committee on Tuesday evening at 5:45 p.m. in City Council chambers to go line by line through the budget, following a 5:30 p.m. meeting in Room 201 to vote on the ratification of the Unit A teacher’s contract.
