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Schools

New School Bullying Policy Makes First Step

The new program makes students more aware of and accountable for their in-school behavior.

Asst. Supt. Gary Cialfi has unveiled the new Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support program Trumbull’s middle schools began piloting last year.

Cialfi called PBIS “a decision making framework that guides the implementation of the best evidence-based practices to strengthen school climate and reduce negative student behaviors.”

PBIS will benefit all students, the staff and the schools, he said.

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As with the Anti-Bullying mandate, this program seeks to significantly reduce, if not eliminate, inappropriate, belligerent and harmful behavior through which some students create an unwelcoming or even hostile environment for others.

Cialfi called PBIS “another tool to support the state’s recently passed Anti-Bullying legislation.”  He added it will teach values by having the schools’ staff model desired behaviors during all curricular and extracurricular activities. 

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The program has been well enough received that other districts are visiting these schools to learn about PBIS.

He introduced the four core elements that comprise the program:

  • Practices that are demonstrably capable of achieving the desired behaviors;
  • Data that can be used to measure progress and make decisions;
  • Outcomes the data make measurable;
  • Systems that enable data collection, storage, manipulation and interpretation.

Both schools have formed PBIS teams composed of the assistant principal, social worker, intervention specialist (Madison) or counselor (Hillcrest) and teachers.  Madison includes a security person on its team.

Last year the two schools began gathering data from staff and students about the quality of their school’s climate, asking students such questions as whether they feel safe and who they would you go to if they were bullied. The staff then created classroom lessons around the responses and carried the survey over to this year.

He was joined by the two schools’ social workers, Yazmin Carattini from  and Meredith Barton from . The social workers noted that the program becomes most effective once data has been gathered and analyzed for all three grades.

This program drew board responses similar to those raised by the Anti-Bullying policy, among them a question from board member Lisa Labella, whether this was not doing things parents ought to be doing. Carattini responded that “the school reinforces.” 

It was noted that PBIS is an in loco parentis program – one in which the school acts in the place of the parent. In this case, it improves the behavioral climate in the schools and ensures that students find their school open, safe and welcoming.

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