Del Valle Elementary’s team built their behavior rubric around that acronym, SOAR:
SOAR is the school’s PBIS motto, and using it in their behavior rubric enables the whole community to have real conversations about what safety, ownership, achievement, and respect mean in each setting.
These expectations are divided by location and event to get more specific on what’s expected of students.
In addition, Del Valle also has attendance incentives for Monday and Friday on their rubric, which is when they tend to have the most students out.
You’ll notice that their rubric is also in both English and Spanish to support the Limited English Proficiency community.
Finally, they have an “Oh No” section for severe behaviors – Red Behaviors in their matrix discussed above.
When a teacher selects one of these, LiveSchool automatically emails the leadership and behavior team at Del Valle, who come to the classroom to manage the discipline. The email includes all behaviors logged that day for the student to give the intervening staff member a background on what’s been going on.
Developing their rubric occurred over a seven-year period of trial and error. This work was prompted by a need to reduce behavior incidents across the school:
When they started this work, there were 276 referrals and 88 instances of exclusionary discipline (in-and-out-of-school suspensions). In a school with 600 students, that is a ratio of one referral per every two students and one exclusionary discipline for every three students.
Since then, here’s what they’ve achieved:
We’re proud to be partnered with schools like Del Valle Elementary to help make this happen. When teachers are supported and behavior distractions are minimized, students spend more time learning and growing.
