District highlights three‑year behavior partnership aimed at reducing exclusions

Dorchester School District 2 trustees heard May 11 about a three‑year behavior partnership intended to reduce exclusionary discipline and build staff capacity at three pilot schools.

"They are affiliated with SC Teams. Their overall goal with Basque is to build capacity within the school buildings of our partner schools and also they do that through coaching and training at the tier one level," David Walker, district special education and behavior staff, told the board, describing the program as a foundational, implementation and sustainability sequence.

Nut graf: The district has chosen Eagles Nest Elementary, River Oaks Middle and Fort Dorchester High School as the initial partners; the first year focused on needs assessments, professional learning and drafting school manuals to capture schoolwide norms and response flowcharts.

Walker said the work is intended to scale: after a foundational year the district expects to enter implementation and then sustainment, tracking success primarily through discipline data and integrating behavior interventions into the MTSS/Panorama framework. "So our BAS methodology ... our first year is foundational. That's the year that we're in currently. Our second year is our implementation year ... the third year and beyond is sustainability," he said.

Board members asked whether the initiative aligns with other alternative school planning and MTSS work; presenters said BAS currently targets the three schools but is intended to expand districtwide and that discipline metrics will be the primary success measure.

The board received the presentation as informational; no formal vote was taken on the partnership during the meeting.