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Parkside Middle School credits PBIS and teacher-led systems for drop in conduct referrals
Summary
Parkside staff told the Conduct Committee a shift to positive acknowledgement, classroom-managed tracking and restorative practices reduced punitive reminders from 223 to 61 and conduct referrals from 47 to 16 in the first 10 days of school. Staff described training, PLCs and teacher leadership as key.
Parkside Middle School staff told the Manchester School District Conduct Committee on Sept. 17 that a shift to schoolwide positive behavior supports and classroom-managed tracking has produced rapid reductions in office referrals and punitive reminders in the first 10 days of the school year.
"We wanted to have a whole shift in the school culture," said Mike Lebowski, a seventh-grade literacy teacher on Parkside’s tier-1 team, describing a rewards and acknowledgement system that the school calls PBIS. He said teachers give points and students can redeem them for non-monetary rewards such as lunch with a teacher, special seating or recognition calls home.
Team lead Nicole Gamela said the school moved to a simpler set of expectations this year—safety, respect and responsibility—and added classroom-level systems, videos with students modeling expectations, and icebreaker activities so teachers have ready-made lessons to reteach expectations.
Parkside staff presented comparative counts: last year’s cohort totals showed 223 students across grade levels had received punitive reminders at comparable points; under the new system that total fell to 61. The team also reported a drop in office-managed conduct referrals from 47 last year to 16 in the first 10 days, and said staff logged more than 13,000 PBIS positive-acknowledgement points in the same short period as evidence of increased positive interactions.
Presenters attributed the change to teacher leadership, ongoing training and systems work done over the summer, and said staff participated in rotations, received roughly two hours of initial training and will continue monthly check-ins and PLC time for follow-up. Committee members praised the results and suggested Parkside return later in the school year with an update on sustained outcomes.
Parkside said the new classroom-managed tracking aligns with restorative practices and clarifies what incidents are teacher-managed versus office-managed. Staff emphasized that the tracking tool is intended to capture repeated behaviors and to give teams data to decide whether interventions should escalate to tier-2 or tier-3 supports.
The committee did not take formal action. Staff and committee members agreed to continue monitoring implementation and outcomes.
