North Brandywine Middle School staff presented the board with a summary of schoolwide behavior and climate initiatives on April 22, spotlighting PBIS rewards and interventions, a Dignity program that emphasizes belonging, and usage and results from the IXL online practice platform.

The school reported a range of PBIS activities for students and staff, including themed incentives, bus-reward trips, a biweekly PBIS cart of prizes, team-building days, and a schoolwide June fun fair scheduled for June 3. Staff identified three major target behaviors this year: student lateness to school, disruptive classroom behavior and bus misconduct; presenters said the school had reduced referrals for some of those behaviors at times during the year.

The Dignity initiative, the presenters said, focuses on belonging and relationship building. Activities highlighted included staff-student relationship mapping (a goal that every student have at least two adults who know their story), a culture-and-respect club for students, and outreach such as notes and exchanges with a local community center (Freedom Village). Presenters tied those efforts to student engagement: they reported that 93 percent of students had attended school 95 percent of the time or more.

Presenters also gave usage metrics for IXL, an online practice system the school uses for ELA and math: the school reported more than 29,000 IXL skills practiced, more than 18,000 skills marked proficient and more than 6,000 skills mastered. School leaders described instances of student growth measured in grade-level equivalents — including examples of students moving one to two grade levels and one English learner moving three grade levels on IXL measures — and said the district will watch whether that growth translates to state assessments.

The PBIS presentation was delivered by Miss Carpia and Mr. Noonan; Dignity programming was described by Miss Campbell and other staff. The school also recognized students with perfect attendance (names were read at the meeting) and publicly acknowledged paraprofessionals and staff for service and perfect attendance.

Why it matters: the programs combine behavior supports, relationship-building and targeted practice to address attendance and classroom disruption, issues board members consider central to learning time and achievement. School staff said they plan to start incentives earlier next year and to continue onboarding and staff collaboration practices to sustain gains.

Direct quotes were limited to speakers rostered for the presentation; the board did not take action on the presentation itself but received it as a special report.