How to Improve Your Children’s School Successes
As an elementary school principal, I provide guidance and resources to support our students’ social-emotional and academic successes. Our school also uses Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) to reinforce positive social behaviors and define consequences for problem behaviors. We focus on ensuring a predictable, consistent, positive, and a safe school environment for all students. By using a common language on school-wide expectations, less time is spent on discipline. More time is focused on instruction, building a positive school climate, and promoting positive interactions between staff, students, and families.
Student Success PBIS School-Wide Strategies
Effective strategies at our school that may have immediate results include:
- Providing a weekly student leadership recognition program for grade levels and teacher assigned classrooms
- Clarifying school-wide and individual classroom expectations and routines so students understand the consequences of their actions
- Providing active supervision in the classroom, during recesses and at lunch time to ensure students are experiencing a positive school climate of support and respect
- Using individualized praise and encouragement for expected behaviors
- Ensuring students can earn privileges and rewards for expected behaviors and classroom supportive collaborations
Added PBIS Student Success Strategies
Added effective PBIS strategies that can be implemented at schools include:
- Providing a weekly student leadership recognition program for grade levels and teacher assigned classrooms
- Encouraging students to become school leaders and collaborative problem solvers through school-wide clubs and leadership councils
- Hosting school-wide community activism days and sports activity days for students, their parents, and the school community
- Creating expanded after school programs that promote academic successes, leadership, citizenship, sportsmanship, performing arts, STEM programs, and community partnerships
- Facilitating collaborative grade level and school-wide team meetings for effective problem-solving and to create innovative solutions to ongoing challenges
Qualifying for a Silver Medal
As we continue to establish our PBIS program, we submitted first year school year outcome data to qualify for a silver medal. I believe that the commitment and grit of our teaching staff empowered the students to work beyond their traditional achievement levels. We are excited about expanding our academic support programs this coming school year. My next post on October 26th will focus on our social-emotional programing plans for students this upcoming school year.
Dr. Rafael Zavala became passionate about learning at an early age. As a child of farmworkers in the Salinas Valley, Rafael attended Santa Clara University for his undergraduate degree and completed Masters’ Degrees at Saint Louis University and Harvard. Most recently, Dr. Zavala completed his Ed.D. from San Jose State University.
Mr. Zavala started teaching in 2002 at Solidad Unified School District in California and later at Cambridge Public Schools and Malden Public Schools in Massachusetts. After returning to California in 2015, Dr. Zavala served in diverse administrative roles including Assistant Principal, Administrator of School Climate and Culture, and Administrator II of Personnel Services. Rafael became the Principal of Sakamoto Elementary School in San Jose, California in 2021.
A primary focus of his work is to ensure the equitable educational support services for all students by implementing Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). Mr. Zavala firmly believes that when district and school staff collaborate to create effective tiered behavioral support strategies, students will succeed at grade level and beyond.