The Marshall administration knew they had a problem when the line of kids arriving late to school stretched out of the office, outside, and almost onto the parking lot. An almost daily occurrence last year, these lines made students even later to first block than they already were because attendance officer Kandy Brown had to manually write out every pass.
According to principal Jay Pearson, at least 100 students were late to school for almost a third of last year.
In addition, many teachers witnessed a negative behavioral change in their first period classes.
?Sometimes up to 50 percent of students in first period classes were absent,? biology teacher Barbara Brown said.
Many teachers such as Brown felt the negative behavior exhibited by the underclassman was not being addressed by the administration. This was due to the lack of organization in the referral system. To prevent the continuation of this trend, the administration implemented the Positive Behavioral Support (PBS) system to formalize and advance the way in which the administration deals with rule breaking.
?Nobody really thought about the fact that students might not really care about being tardy [if there was no punishment,]? director of student services Cindy Blakeley said. The PBS program is an effort to bring Marshall into line with Fairfax County policy. Marshall adopted PBS in an effort to replicate the positive results seen at many FCPS elementary, middle and high schools that implemented the policy.
At the beginning of the year, to handle the large number of late students, the administration installed a computer screen and number keypad outside the attendance office where students late to school input their student IDs.
Students are assigned a Friday detention every third time they input their number tardy per semester.
The concept was born when Pearson asked social studies teacher and assessment coach Tim Kane whether the Lunch and Learn database could support the attendance office.
?The [clipboard and paper] system we had in place is what I?d call a legacy system,? Pearson said. ?We tried to modernize it.?
The concept of ?incentive? is central to PBS. According to school counselor Gina Fajardo, who is spearheading the implementation of PBS at Marshall, the system is designed to predict the causes of negative behavior and when such behavior will occur.
In this way, PBS strives to design a procedure that will address the unacceptable actions of any student based on how the actions distract or endanger the student?s peers. It additionally attempts to understand the student?s motivation rather than simply administering order.
Part of the early-morning problem came from the slowness of the tardy line through the office. ?The line moved really fast because of the new machine,? said freshman Amrudin Mujezinovic, who had been given detention by the new machine. Junior Cristian ?Papusa? Arrazola, who had also received a detention for morning tardiness, pointed out a possible flaw in the system. ?Anybody could put your number in,? he said, a problem that had been previously avoided by personal interaction with Brown.
Kandy Brown is well aware of this sentiment, pointing out that she still sits directly behind the machine. ?Hello, I?m still here,? she said.
Along with handling the morning tardy issue, PBS is responsible for the forms that clarify a teacher?s role in administering punishment that have been distributed among the staff as well as posters emphasizing the core values of Marshall Statesman that will be posted all over the school before next year.
According to Kane, the PBS procedures for administering punishment is that six unexcused tardies result in Friday and Saturday detentions. If a student accumulates nine unexcused tardies, the priviledge to attend any school sponsored activities is removed.
The most significant change is an award system based on a student?s positive contributions to his/her community to encourage volunteer work.
Teachers are expected to reward students who they feel have served their school or classroom community, or aided their peers, with raffle tickets. When submitted to the office, the tickets make the student eligible various prizes.
This opportunity is to show the benefits of positivity and civil service, Fajardo said, and promote positive behavior that is everlasting. PBS has been implemented in several states, including Louisiana and North Carolina. The program decreased offenses by twenty-five percent in its first year in the 225 North Carolina schools in 2007. The immediate effects of PBS are already apparent in the office and around the school, but only time will tell if it can push Marshall in the right direction.