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Beatrice Public Schools reports behavior declines, plans academic interventions and incentives
Summary
District staff told the board PBIS and student-led recognition systems have coincided with a drop in reported incidents this year; the district plans to expand a middle-school ICU intervention and restart 'Freedom Fridays' to support freshmen and sophomores and improve on-time credit accumulation.
At the board meeting, school staff reported progress on the district's school-improvement priorities, emphasizing behavior supports and targeted academic interventions.
Speaker 2 briefed the board on PBIS work at Beatrice High School, describing four core behavior expectations—learner, responsible, respectful and integrity—and student-facing reinforcement systems including recognition cards and public banners. "Students seem to enjoy that," Speaker 2 said of a mental-health awareness week and mentor-led lessons before finals.
Staff reported disciplinary data to the board: the 2022–23 school year had about 570 referrals (resulting in 186 out-of-school suspensions and 143 in-school suspensions), while the current year showed 438 referrals with 156 out-of-school and 60 in-school suspensions; incident counts fell from about 279 in the first semester to 158 in the second. Speaker 2 cautioned the board that causation is hard to determine but said the trend is "positive data in relation to student behavior and referrals."
To address academics, the district's academic committee recommended adopting an ICU model used in the middle school for freshmen and sophomores and restarting 'Freedom Fridays,' a targeted-instruction incentive where the students passing classes are released ~35 minutes early and those still failing work with teachers.
Board members pressed staff on implementation and measurement: staff said they will track referrals, collect teacher feedback, and can line up teachers and student representatives to report back to the board on successes. No formal action or vote was recorded on these programmatic recommendations during the meeting.
