Discover how Taylor Middle School increased attendance and teacher retention with PBIS.
Things were bad.
Like really bad. Taylor Middle School in Lovington, New Mexico had 8 principals in 7 years. Behavior was such an issue that expulsion hearings were becoming routine.
The combination of leadership turnover and severe behavior disruptions made Taylor a very hard place to teach. Which made it very hard to retain good teachers. TMS was seeing a 50% turnover in staff retention every year.
“It wasn't a great environment, we had some very negative teachers. They felt like it was such an uphill battle to manage behaviors that they couldn't see the light towards anything positive.” -Principal Lockwood
But then that all changed with Principal Laci Lockwood. Attendance is up, referrals are down, and Taylor is being recognized nationally for the work they’ve done with PBIS, Capturing Kids Hearts, and LiveSchool.
How do you move from a point where it seems there's no light at the end of the tunnel to being touted as a beacon for school culture reform? Before we get into the how let’s take a closer look at the problem that Laci and her staff had to solve.
Things were bad.
Like really bad. Taylor Middle School in Lovington, New Mexico had 8 principals in 7 years. Behavior was such an issue that expulsion hearings were becoming routine.
The combination of leadership turnover and severe behavior disruptions made Taylor a very hard place to teach. Which made it very hard to retain good teachers. TMS was seeing a 50% turnover in staff retention every year.
“It wasn't a great environment, we had some very negative teachers. They felt like it was such an uphill battle to manage behaviors that they couldn't see the light towards anything positive.” -Principal Lockwood
But then that all changed with Principal Laci Lockwood. Attendance is up, referrals are down, and Taylor is being recognized nationally for the work they’ve done with PBIS, Capturing Kids Hearts, and LiveSchool.
How do you move from a point where it seems there's no light at the end of the tunnel to being touted as a beacon for school culture reform? Before we get into the how let’s take a closer look at the problem that Laci and her staff had to solve.
There's not a moment on our campus, from 7:50 to 3:30, when we aren't using LiveSchool because we believe it's such a valuable tool.
The behaviors were severe. The teachers and administration at Taylor weren’t tasked with managing low-level classroom disruptions. This wasn’t kids making paper airplanes and chewing gum in class.
There was rampant drug use in the building. Students were threatening teachers. The disruption to the learning environment was constant. This wasn’t OK. Taylor was labeled as one of the worst schools in the community at the time.
“People were afraid to bring their kids to school here.” -Principal Lockwood
We already mentioned the high rate of teacher and leadership turnover that was a result of this behavior. The stress that you go through when you’re working in a building with a poor culture can become too heavy of a burden to bear.
It becomes a vicious cycle as the stress causes people to leave and the structure and processes they were trying to establish leave with them. That makes it even harder to establish expectations and procedures the next year because nobody believes the new system will last.
It’s important to note the impact all of this had on the students as well. Taylor was averaging 7-10 expulsions every year as well. They were seeing multiple major infractions every day.
Suspensions, both out-of-school (OSS) and in-school (ISS) were normal aspects associated with being a student at TMS.
But here’s the part of Taylor’s story that I want you to take to heart. Things might be bad on your campus but as Principal Lockwood and her team have proved, they don’t have to stay that way.
Let’s dig into the turnaround at TMS.
“We needed a culture shift that was so big, we felt we had to start by highlighting the good things our students were doing.” -Principal Lockwood
Laci knew she couldn’t do this alone. She needed a team. If they had made it through the first year (which wasn’t easy) then they cared. That was a start. Identifying those teachers and staff members who were committed to changing Taylor was step one.
She went to each of them individually and bluntly asked if they’d like to make Taylor a better place to teach and learn. Of course, they said: “Yes, let’s do this.”
“It takes exceptional people to run middle schools, it takes even extra special people to teach those middle schoolers.”-Principal Lockwood
Once she had identified her strongest people, the folks who still came to work even after the bad days, it was time to plan. They spent the summer brainstorming and debating. They became the TMS version of the breakfast club.
That group identified the values they wanted TMS to stand for and they targeted the strategies they’d need to execute to get there. Let’s take a look at the plan they developed.
Everything was negative. That needed to change and it needed to change fast.
“We had a problem, and we were tired of it, there's no reason that 13 and 14-year-old kids should be telling the adults what to do.”-Principal Lockwood
Enter PBIS. Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a proactive approach to behavior in your building. PBIS is designed to differentiate between the levels of support your students need via the PBIS tiers.
For Taylor, this meant establishing school-wide expectations that reflected the values they held as vital to student success. Those values were:
For students to be successful in their learning they needed to recognize those values as well. Traci and her team created a PBIS matrix that broke down those values into PBIS expectations for students no matter where they were on campus. Here are a few examples:
For a PBIS behavior plan to work, your students need to understand those expectations.
That meant creating posters to be displayed all around campus and designing lesson plans to roll out the new expectations to students once school was back in session.
It also meant that they needed to field a staff that believed things could change and would keep a positive outlook on the road to get there. Because consistency and intentionality were going to be key factors in the turnaround at Taylor.
“We still believe that achievement, compassion, integrity, and safety are the things that we need here in the building.”-Principal Lockwood
Laci and her team filter teacher candidates for positivity. It’s paramount for the success of their students that they employ teachers who share the values they’ve worked so hard to establish. It begins very early in the interview process. They start by asking a simple question:
“How can you make a difference for our students?”
If they can’t articulate that, then this just isn’t the right school for them. If they can, then it becomes about analyzing their ability to maintain a positive outlook. Does their experience support that claim?
This intentionality has helped to build a staff that is fully invested in the school culture that they’ve established – which has given it staying power. But teacher buy-in is only half the battle, to keep students invested they had to find creative ways to motivate them.
PBIS points, or LiveSchool points, are the mechanism by which staff members recognize all of the positive actions students are taking in the building. They tie in PBIS every single day and use LiveSchool all over campus.
LiveSchool is a platform designed to be used by educators to bring a positive school culture to life with school-wide points. Points are aligned to expectations and when students meet or exceed those expectations the staff awards them points.
Those points add up in the form of data for the administration to use and in the form of currency for students to trade in for rewards in your token economy. Staff award points everywhere. All of the time. If you’re doing the right thing, you get recognized for it at TMS.
“There's not a moment on our campus, from 7:50 to 3:30, when we aren't using LiveSchool because we believe it's such a valuable tool.” -Principal Lockwood
The data showcases the great things that are happening around the building. It also showcases some of the areas that they need to focus on. Laci and her team know exactly which behaviors are prevalent, and what kids need help.
For those who are meeting expectations, the team has created some innovative ways to keep them engaged.
Very early on in the process, the team created what they call the “Platinum Club”. It’s played a very big role in transforming the culture at Taylor. The club recognizes the top 15 LiveSchool point leaders in the building each week.
As part of the Platinum Club festivities, students are called down to the office for a reward. But the recognition doesn’t stop there. Taylor awards Platinum Club students each week through:
Now that we’ve seen the nuts and bolts of the plan at TMS, let’s take a moment to celebrate the results.
The implementation of PBIS and LiveSchool at Taylor Middle School has yielded remarkable outcomes. This year alone, Taylor has awarded 419,000 LiveSchool points, which emphasizes their commitment to reinforcing positive behavior with their students.
All of those points have created an atmosphere where students want to be at school. They’ve seen a significant improvement in attendance, rising from 88% to 93%. This increase reflects the engagement and commitment of students to actively participate in their educational journey.
Taylor has seen such a radical reduction in suspensions that In-School Suspension (ISS) has been eliminated. Instead, TMS has implemented an alternative approach to addressing minor infractions, finding that most issues can be effectively resolved through lunch detention.
Referrals are now rare occurrences and primarily stem from habitual behavioral issues among students on behavior plans.
An astounding 94% of the staff have recognized students for their positive behavior throughout the year. This is a massive indicator that the plan isn’t just working right now, it’s sustainable.
That positive momentum has led to a rise in teacher retention rates, soaring from 50% to an impressive 87% over just a few years.
Taylor Middle School has been designated as Capturing Kids Hearts National Showcase School for its commitment to improving the academic success of its students through intentionality and consistency.
They’ve done such a great job building a strong culture that they have the breathing room and bandwidth to address other things.
Free of the constant commitment to improving behavior, the staff is now focused on coursework competition and eliminating student apathy in the classroom.
“We feel that this multi-layer approach focuses on organizing the efforts of adults to be more effective while providing a framework that promotes positive academic, social, behavioral, and emotional outcomes.” -Principal Lockwood
With the culture they’ve created over the past couple of years, teachers love coming to work at Taylor and are dedicated to maintaining the positive culture we see today. But that success didn’t come easy.
To succeed in the fashion that Laci and her team have you have to create a culture of consistency and efficacy within your programs. LiveSchool is embedded at Taylor. It’s a critical function of everything they do.
That means they use the data. In the classroom. In teacher team meetings. In faculty meetings. It’s utilized at such a level that adults hold each other responsible for its use. The data has created a culture of transparency that is a win for everyone.
Because meeting school-wide expectations requires a school-wide commitment to success.
“LiveSchool has transformed how we identify and help kids - and teachers as well. Because it’s simple and easy to use, it can give you the data points that other programs just can’t.” - Principal Lockwood
You know what they teamwork makes the dream work. These articles have been written by the wonderful members of our team.
Things were bad.
Like really bad. Taylor Middle School in Lovington, New Mexico had 8 principals in 7 years. Behavior was such an issue that expulsion hearings were becoming routine.
The combination of leadership turnover and severe behavior disruptions made Taylor a very hard place to teach. Which made it very hard to retain good teachers. TMS was seeing a 50% turnover in staff retention every year.
“It wasn't a great environment, we had some very negative teachers. They felt like it was such an uphill battle to manage behaviors that they couldn't see the light towards anything positive.” -Principal Lockwood
But then that all changed with Principal Laci Lockwood. Attendance is up, referrals are down, and Taylor is being recognized nationally for the work they’ve done with PBIS, Capturing Kids Hearts, and LiveSchool.
How do you move from a point where it seems there's no light at the end of the tunnel to being touted as a beacon for school culture reform? Before we get into the how let’s take a closer look at the problem that Laci and her staff had to solve.
Things were bad.
Like really bad. Taylor Middle School in Lovington, New Mexico had 8 principals in 7 years. Behavior was such an issue that expulsion hearings were becoming routine.
The combination of leadership turnover and severe behavior disruptions made Taylor a very hard place to teach. Which made it very hard to retain good teachers. TMS was seeing a 50% turnover in staff retention every year.
“It wasn't a great environment, we had some very negative teachers. They felt like it was such an uphill battle to manage behaviors that they couldn't see the light towards anything positive.” -Principal Lockwood
But then that all changed with Principal Laci Lockwood. Attendance is up, referrals are down, and Taylor is being recognized nationally for the work they’ve done with PBIS, Capturing Kids Hearts, and LiveSchool.
How do you move from a point where it seems there's no light at the end of the tunnel to being touted as a beacon for school culture reform? Before we get into the how let’s take a closer look at the problem that Laci and her staff had to solve.
Things were bad.
Like really bad. Taylor Middle School in Lovington, New Mexico had 8 principals in 7 years. Behavior was such an issue that expulsion hearings were becoming routine.
The combination of leadership turnover and severe behavior disruptions made Taylor a very hard place to teach. Which made it very hard to retain good teachers. TMS was seeing a 50% turnover in staff retention every year.
“It wasn't a great environment, we had some very negative teachers. They felt like it was such an uphill battle to manage behaviors that they couldn't see the light towards anything positive.” -Principal Lockwood
But then that all changed with Principal Laci Lockwood. Attendance is up, referrals are down, and Taylor is being recognized nationally for the work they’ve done with PBIS, Capturing Kids Hearts, and LiveSchool.
How do you move from a point where it seems there's no light at the end of the tunnel to being touted as a beacon for school culture reform? Before we get into the how let’s take a closer look at the problem that Laci and her staff had to solve.
Things were bad.
Like really bad. Taylor Middle School in Lovington, New Mexico had 8 principals in 7 years. Behavior was such an issue that expulsion hearings were becoming routine.
The combination of leadership turnover and severe behavior disruptions made Taylor a very hard place to teach. Which made it very hard to retain good teachers. TMS was seeing a 50% turnover in staff retention every year.
“It wasn't a great environment, we had some very negative teachers. They felt like it was such an uphill battle to manage behaviors that they couldn't see the light towards anything positive.” -Principal Lockwood
But then that all changed with Principal Laci Lockwood. Attendance is up, referrals are down, and Taylor is being recognized nationally for the work they’ve done with PBIS, Capturing Kids Hearts, and LiveSchool.
How do you move from a point where it seems there's no light at the end of the tunnel to being touted as a beacon for school culture reform? Before we get into the how let’s take a closer look at the problem that Laci and her staff had to solve.
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