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News and information for staff members and the Madison community

Vol. II No. 6 - April 10, 2007

My Place: Positive student behavior in safe and secure schools

by Mary Gulbrandsen, Student Services Team Director

Whenever a serious incident occurs in any school in the country, many people offer suggestions that range from if the school had only taught bully proofing skills or had metal detectors at the door or had more police officers in the schools to any number of other single ideas.

The simple truth is, there is not just one element to school safety; it is a very complex set of beliefs, strategies and behaviors that schools develop over time and practice daily. It includes

• addressing safety and security measures,
• developing a positive climate where students and staff are fully engaged, and
• most importantly, teaching, encouraging, modeling and practicing positive and responsible behavior.

The MMSD Vision is quite simple. It is to create a district where the learning environment is emotionally and physically safe and orderly, and the contributions of all are valued and respected.

If it's My Place, whether I am staff or student,

• I feel safe
• I want to be here
• I can do my work
• I am proud to be a part of this place
• I am treated respectfully & I treat others respectfully
• I have a good time
• I benefit from being here & I benefit others by being here

The MMSD has put in place numerous prevention practices and programs, responses to significant behavior problems and responses to serious behavior incidents and crises. We need to continue to improve in all of these areas and in our safety and security procedures and practices, our communication efforts and our behavior and discipline procedures and practices.

To plan, prepare and implement safe and secure schools, the MMSD has security and crisis response teams. We have developed guidelines that are followed whenever there is a crisis or an emergency and we regularly practice these guidelines.

We have and will continue to train staff on emergency and crisis response. Annually we review our data such as police calls, assaults, security reports, suspensions and expulsions to evaluate what is working, what is not working and then make changes to our procedures.

We use technology that allows for greater communication such as Infinite Campus, phones in each classroom, our TV stations and our website. In addition, we have acquired equipment to increase our safety and security responsiveness, e.g. playground door locks, cameras, 2-way radios, cell phones and AEDs (defibrillators.)

But, most importantly, we have made a commitment to developing positive relationships between and among students and adults. Positive relationships are critical to establishing an environment in which inappropriate behavior does not occur.

There are a few simple things that we can do to nurture these relationships:

• Have high and clearly understood expectations for each child
• Assume that every child wants to succeed every day
• If a child is not succeeding, always find the reason (and then do something about it)
• Try to see the world through the eyes of our children
• Use encouraging and supportive strategies for change (think about the words we use — encouragement not sarcasm, support not judgment)
• Give every child a fresh start every day

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Last Updated: Tue May 1 16:08:32 2007
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