This is the second edition of the Muskegon MIBLSi PBS Newsletter Spring 08 issue. The newsletter contains celebrations from our participating Muskegon MIBLSi /PBSMichigan schools, articles on PBS tools, and focus articles of intensive students,. The newsletter is edited by Steven Vitto, M.A., MAISD behavior consultant. Steve can be reached at svitto@muskegonisd.org

1. ISSUE #2
MiBLSi PBS
Newsletter
SPRING 2008
Welcome!
Inside This Issue Welcome to the Spring edition of the MAISD Michigan
PBS Celebrations 2 Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative (MiBLSi)
Tribute to Dr. Bernie Travnikar 3 Positive Behavior Support (PBS) Newsletter. We would like to
Meeting Mechanics 4 begin by congratulating all of you for your efforts in providing a
positive behavior support initiative in your school this year. We
Strategies for Defiance 4
believe that your hard work will make a positive difference in
MIBLSi State Conference Links 4
the lives of all of your students.
SWIS and the Big Five 4
Breaking Down the Walls 5 In this issue we will review highlights of the 2009 Michigan State
MIBLSi Conference, in Lansing Michigan. In addition, we will
acknowledge celebrations from our Muskegon MIBLSi and PBS
Participating Schools Participating Schools. Informational articles on Meeting Me-
Beach Elementary (Fruitport) chanics, Relationship Driven Classrooms, and The SWIS Big
Beachnau Elementary (Ravenna) Five will also be provided. We hope you have a great spring and
Bluffton Elementary (Muskegon) summer!
Campbell Elementary (Mona Shores)
Cardinal Elementary (Orchard View) Steven Vitto, M.A. MIBLSI Specialist, PBS Newsletter Editor
Churchill Elementary (Mona Shores) Susan Mack, M.A. MIBLSI/PBS Coach
Deanna Holman, MIBLSI Specialist
Edgewood Elementary (Fruitport) Latesha Johnson, PBS Newsletter Design Support
Edgewood Elementary (Muskegon Heights)
Holton Elementary
Lincoln Park Elementary (Mona Shores)
Loftis Elementary (Muskegon Heights)
Marquette Elementary (Muskegon)
Martin Luther King (Muskegon Heights)
McLaughlin Elementary (Muskegon)
McMillan (Reeths Puffer)
Muskegon Heights Middle School
Nelson Elementary (Muskegon)
Nims Elementary (Muskegon)
Oakview Elementary (Muskegon)
Orchard View Early Elementary
Orchard View Middle School
Reeths-Puffer Elementary
Roosevelt Elementary (Muskegon Heights)
Shettler Elementary (Fruitport)

2. Page 2
PBS at Bluffton Celebration at Celebrating at
Principal: Jerry Johnson McLaughlin Elementary The Campbell Cafe
Principal: Alina Fortenberry Principal:Nate Smith
Under the leadership of principal Alina
Fortenberry and Specialist, Timmy Smith,
McGlaughlin conducted an all-school spirit
award assembly to recognize students who
earned Little RED’s certificates as well as out-
standing students of the month.
Each class room at Mclaughlin nominates an
outstanding student of the month and the office
identifies an outstanding student of the school.
All of these students’ efforts are acknowledged At Campbell school, student earn S’mores as
at a very spirited assembly where students are acknowledgement for following the school-
enthusiastically cheered on by their peers. Be- wide expectations. In addition, there monthly
ing the most “outstanding student” is consid- award assemblies, and each month the S’mores
ered a very special honor. This student is in- winner from each classroom, is identified as a
vited to an Optimists Club dinner with their camp leader, and invited to dine with the princi-
family, and receives a special certificate, a T- pal, Nate Smith, at the at the Campbell Café.
shirt, and a $25 cash award. In addition to the Campbell’s MIBLSi team has also stream-lined
student festivities, the MIBLSi team has been their meeting process and are using the Meeting
actively involved in using the Check-in, Mechanics process to staff students in the tar-
Check-out system and performing Meeting geted and intensive range.
Mechanics on their targeted and intensive stu-
dents. Congratulations McLaughlin for all your
Marquette Elementary
hard work this year!
Principal: Gaye Monroe
Specialist: Andre Burke
At Marquette, students and staff celebrate good
behavior monthly at all-school meetings and
STARS lunches. Birthdays, academic growth,
and STARS behavior successes or enjoyed and
acknowledged by kids and teachers alike.
Churchill Elementary/
Mona Shores
Principal: Mark Platt
The theme at Churchill is R.O.C.K.S! Really
Outstanding Churchill Kids! The Rock Star
awards are given to students that Stay positive,
Take responsibility, Act respectfully, and are
Ready to learn. The Churchill team has re-
cently produced a “Churchill Rocks “video for
teaching expectations. The video can be
viewed on Teacher Tube. In addition, Chur-
chill’s teaching and playground staff have been
training in Systematic Supervision on the play-
ground.

3. Page 3
Providing an Overview of
PBS for Muskegon’s
“Specials” Teachers
Susan Mack and Steven Vitto, Muskegon
MIBLSi oaches, and MAISD Behavior
Consultants, recently provided a morning-
long PBS overview training for all of
Muskegon “Specials” Teachers (e.g., Art,
Music, Gym, etc.). Due to their providing
services at several schools, these teachers Tribute to
are often not available for initial PBS kick-
offs, follow-up trainings, and staff meetings. Bernie Travnikar
In addition, some of these teachers are
working in two or three different schools In September, we were informed of the
with different sets of expectations in each passing of Dr. Bernie Travikar. Bernie was
school. The training provided an overview a pioneer in the PBS movement and ac-
of the basic elements of PBS, Systematic tively supported school-wide positive be-
Supervision, and the F.A.S.T. program. havior support (PBS) initiatives in Michi-
gan for many years. At the time of his
MIBLSI death, Bernie was working with a number
of schools in Michigan as a MIBLSi Exter-
Cohort 5 School-wide nal Coach. Prior to MIBLSi, Bernie was “To catch the reader's atten-
instrumental in bringing PBS to Muskegon tion, place an interesting sen-
Reading Training and his support helped us to start our first Oakview Kids Care
tence or quote from the story
school-wide PBS initiative at Beach Ele- here.”
Principal: Pam Varga
mentary School in Fruitport, in 2002. Un-
As part of their first year in the MiBLSi
project, Cohort 5 Leadership Teams have der the administration of Principal Julie Specialist:Geoff Zietlow
been spending their first year implement- VanBergen, Beach is still actively support- At Oakview, students who have
ing school-wide systems for both behav- ing the school-wide movement and has earned C.A.R.E. coupons are
ior and reading. For school-wide read- participated as a Cohort 1 MIBLSi school. acknowledged and celebrated at
ing, Cohort 5 schools are being trained on To the MAISD Behavioral Support Team, classroom parties. Students also
foundations of effective reading instruc- Bernie was a friend and mentor. He will be have the opportunity to earn
tion, communication and integration, missed!! CARE badges. Oakview is also
maximizing classroom instruction, and actively using the Check-in
explicit and systematic instruction. The For more information on Bernie’s
accomplishments and colorful life, see Check-out system.
training includes the Five Big Ideas of
the following link:
reading: phonemic awareness, alphabetic
principle, fluency, vocabulary, and com- http://www.bridges4kids.org/articles/10-
prehension. The teams are also trained 08/BernieTribute10-7-08.html
on the characteristics of at-risk learners
and the instructional implications of these
characteristics. As part of the training, Moon Elementary School
the teams were also shown two video Principal: Kristina Precious
clips of Anita Archer demonstrating ex-
plicit instruction, and were shown how to Specialist John Smith
look at specific lessons within their core
program to determine if the lesson was At Moon School students receive Moon
explicit enough. If the lesson was deter- Beams for following the school-wide ex-
mined not explicit enough, then sugges- pectations. Any students who earns Moon
tions were given on how to make it more Beams can spend them on graduated items
explicit for at-risk learners. At the end of at the school store. The school store is open
February-beginning of March, Cohort 5 weekly and operated by fifth grade stu-
teams completed a third day of school- dents. Big items include mp3 players and
wide training, in addition to a systems attending a basketball game with John
review training for both reading and be- Smith, the school specialist.
havior.

4. Page 4
The School-wide Meeting Mechanics
Information System: By Susan Mack, M.A.
Using the Big Five
Reports Meeting Mechanics is a 45 minute prob-
The School-Wide Information lem solving process that has been adapted
System (SWIS) is a web-based to address behavior problems, but can be
information system designed to help school applied to all team decision making ef-
personnel use office referral data to design forts. Many MiBLSi schools are using
school-wide and individual student inter- Meeting Mechanics during their child
ventions. This data gives school staff the
2009 study teams to address the needs of stu-
dents with behavior and/or academic
capability to evaluate individual State MIBLSI Conference problems.
student behavior, the behavior of groups of
students, in specific settings, and behaviors Presentation Links Meeting Mechanics is a cooperative, team
occurring during specific time periods of the approach that streamlines the steps of
Dr. Steve Goodman welcomed over 500
school day. SWIS reports indicate times working through the problem solving
participants to The Fifth Annual 2009
and/or locations prone to elicit problem process. It involves the use of a time
MIBLSi State Conference. The
behaviors, and allow teachers and adminis- keeper, recorder and facilitator to move
conference gave participants the
trators to shape school-wide environments through the FA/BIP procedure and finish
opportunity to attend over 49 pre-
to maximize students' academic and social with a completed action plan for those
conference and breakout sessions relating
achievements. students who are in Tier Two or Tier
Ann Todd –Commenting on the Big 5: to school-wide behavioral and literacy
initiatives. featured guest presenters Three in behavior or academics.
“Spring is typically a time when problem be-
havior incidents increase. Re-teaching the included: Dr Mark Shinn from National MAISD has been training many MiBLSi
school-wide expectations to students and staff Louis University, Dr. Kent McIntosh from behavior specialists the Meeting Mechan-
is an activity that can help reduce problem the University of Columbia, and Dr. Rob ics process. It is our goal that all MiBLSi
behavior incidents. If you have multiple years March, the director and founder of schools will have one or two trained
of SWIS data, use the multi-year average per Effective Educational Practices (EEP). Meeting Mechanics facilitators to use
day per month report to look at patterns and Theirs and many others’ presentations can during child study team meetings Partici-
trends across the previous year(s). Congratu- be viewed and downloaded at the pants gain team based process skills that
late student and staff efforts and anticipate following link: can be universally adapted to many prob-
problems by examining the data. In addition lems. For more information contact: Sue
to using the multi-year average per day per http://www.cenmi.org/miblsi/
Presentations Mack 231-767-7259, or Steve Vitto,
month report, use the other four reports to 231-767 – 7279
clearly define the problem, context, and stu-
dents contributing to the problem. SWIS re-
ports help to define the types of problems of
concern, where the problems are occurring,
when the problems are occurring, and who is
contributing to the problem. The Big 5 reports
are the first five report folders on the main
menu. If you have difficulty summarizing the
Big 5 reports, ask your SWIS Facilitator for
support.”
NOT LOOSING SITE OF THE INTENT OF SWIS Be sure to checkout the
The intent of SWIS is to collect data in the form
of Office Disciple Referrals, analyze and have new MIBLSi Website!
professional discussions around that data, and
make data driven decisions that effect practice www.cenmi.org/miblsi
with the intent of reducing office referrals and
increasing meaningful instructional time. Like Please send questions,
any data collection system, integrity and fidelity comments, PBS photos, videos,
may be compromised when data is disregarded and celebrations to:
or misused. If SWIS data is used as a means of
evaluating teachers and principals, or comparing svitto@muskegonisd.org
one classroom or school against another, educa-
tors will loose trust and integrity will suffer. If
the teacher in the highest referring classroom is
judged rather than supported, it is likely that this
system will begin to loose its value and be un-
dermined in the process. If teachers hesitate to
make office referrals due to fear of reprisal, then
ultimately it is students who will suffer.

5. Page 5
Breaking Down The Walls:
Reaching The Challenging Child in The Classroom
By Steven Vitto, M.A., Behavior Consultant
With the momentum of the Response to Intervention movement, there is a growing concern that teachers implement evi-
denced based practices in their classroom. When it comes to academics and related instruction, teachers are generally open to
modifying even long standing practices. However, classroom or behavior management is a whole other issue.
Even though we have accumulated an abundance of research on best practice or evidence based classroom management strate-
gies, we often tend to let our emotions and our beliefs about discipline (or how we were disciplined) drive our behavioral man-
agement practices. Why? For decades we have depended on a reactive or retributive system designed to change behavior
through the use of punishment and exclusion. Ironically, and despite its broad-based use, we have growing evidence demon-
strating that prevention, teaching replacement behaviors, and providing acknowledgement for the exhibition of desired behav-
ior, is much more effective in changing behavior than just responding to misbehaviors- especially for students with chronic be-
havioral challenges. If we, as teachers, are struggling with a particular student or a particular group of students, it may be dif-
ficult for us to accurately and objectively assess the problem. Sometimes, our frustrations and failed attempts in reaching diffi-
cult students clouds are ability to see them or the situation objectively. So, if we are committed to implementing best practice
in our classrooms, we need to be prepared to answer some difficult but pertinent questions.
Would a visitor to your classroom be able to quickly determine your classroom expectations and procedures. Would the visitor
see you giving more attention to negative behaviors than to positive behaviors? Would they see you smiling and relating to all
students? For your most challenging students, would they see you being a model for the behaviors you expect? If a visitor to
your classroom was to informally assess the quality of relationships with your challenging students what questions might they
ask you? “Tell me about Johnny” (Would your description be negative?) “ How is your relationship with Johnny? “ (Would
your response be, “We don’t have one.”?). quot;What do you like about Johnny?” (Would you struggle for a response?) “What are
his strengths?” (Would you be at a loss to respond?)
If the student was questioned, how would the student respond? If you were to ask Johnny, “Do you like your teacher?” “Do
you look forward to coming to this class? “ “Does your teacher like you?” Could a visitor guess by your behavior, that the two
of you have a strained or “negative” history? Beyond using behavior data to demonstrate how “bad” a student is, have you
honestly looked at the quality of your relationship with that student?
So why is my relationship with my challenging students so important? Why is his behavior my responsibility? If we were to
make an analogy to a bad marriage, what would we expect to see? The research indicates that in a troubled marriage we would
likely see a great deal of negativity, hostility, and emotionality. If we were to analyze the conversations or comments being
made between the two partners, we would likely find an imbalance-i.e., a high rate of negative comments, with very few or no
positive comments. If the marriage was really in trouble, we might see the individuals making little effort to connect, visibly
antagonistic, and growing further and further apart. So, when we look at the intensive or chronically behavior challenged stu-
dent in our classroom, have we become a partner to a “bad marriage” If the answer to this question is “yes” than we should
not be surprised that the student’s behavior is not improving. Of course the distinction is, that in this “marriage,” we have to
extend more effort than our partner. After all, we are the teacher. It is our responsibility to be the adult, the one who compro-
mises, reaches out, the one who doesn’t take things personally, the one who gives the child a clean slate the next day no matter
what happened yesterday. After a conflict with this child we need to be prepared to take steps to repair a potentially damaged
relationship. So the evidence presents a tough pill to swallow, i.e.- in our most difficult teacher /student partnerships it is likely
us that needs to change! If we think that punishing and excluding this student is going change him or help him grow and learn,
then we are in serious denial. The first step to recovery is to be able to analyze where we are in the relationship, If we have got-
ten to the point where we are more a part of the problem than the solution, it is time to change, Vincent Carbone, a well
known behaviorist, has stated that if we are to be effective in teaching, then the child needs to see being with us as an improv-
ing set of conditions. If the child sees their time with us as a worsening set of conditions then we will likely see escape/avoidant
behaviors that may appear as defiance or bids for attention So before we throw in the towel on our most challenging student,
we have to ask ourselves a final question. Is being with us an “improving set of conditions”?
If not, then it is us that needs to change before the child ever will!
Have a Great Summer!