Although Freedom Middle School has been implementing a framework to support behavior (referred to as PBIS at their site) since 2016, their team has been dedicated to strengthening their school-wide plan each and every year, knowing that the system can always be improved. Stakeholder involvement is one of the many areas where they have dedicated their focus and truly shine as implementors. Dr. Farmer’s weekly principal emails to families included updates regarding PBIS, but to be more intentional about stakeholder involvement, Hollie Osteen and her team created a regular PBIS Newsletter that was shared across multiple platforms in both English and Spanish. Within this newsletter they explain their school-wide plan for teaching and acknowledging behavior, highlight students and teachers of the month, explain how family and community members can support their plan, and showcase their data.

Click here to read one of their PBIS Newsletters

The team also understood the importance of gathering input from families, so they created a family survey. Questions asked if their child knew the STAR expectations on the behavior matrix, if their child could give an example of what it means to be safe, trustworthy, accountable, and/or respectful, and how they have heard about PBIS (e.g., weekly principal emails, their child, PBIS Newsletter, FMS social media, other parents, etc.). They used this input, along with multiple sources of data, to make improvements to their plan throughout meetings this summer.

This survey can be found on their Twitter page @fssdFMS

Community volunteers from Oak Valley Baptist Church also helped transform a space in their building into the “house” at FMS this summer. This space will be used for a variety of purposes such as PBIS incentives, small groups, PLCs, and club meetings. Seeing the community work together throughout the before and after pictures on social media shows how local partnerships can strengthen and extend the school community!

Promoting a positive school climate is embedded within everything they do at FMS, and they are a strong example of how to include all stakeholders through sharing information, gathering input, and working with the community. We are excited to see how their team continues to shine throughout 2021-2022!