sprit week

New Year & Reset

Posted on by nataliesweetpea

It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to make a complete update to my behavioral world so here is a mini one to keep you interested!

Penny wars was a HUGE success!  We were able to raise $650 in a 2-week period…we collected over 37,000 PENNIES…amazing.  Thank goodness for TD Bank’s Penny Arcade is all I have to say!  Since it was a competition between homerooms, all students will be receiving their incentive this week (who doesn’t love pizza and ice cream!)

penny wars flyer

January has come with a complete reset plan for our company.  It is a time to reflect on practices and reset to ensure that everyone understands.  We did it at the corporate level, school level and now classroom.  I’ve seen a BIG impact in the overall compliance in my classroom and it started with this reset.

On Saturday, our core SWPBIS team went to a PaTTAN training.  With all the hard work we’ve put in this year, much of the training was review but we were able to see data from staff surveys.  From there we created our action plan for better implementation.  It was a great feeling when the presenters from PaTTAN recognized me from the videos on our website!

Tomorrow we will be having our first assembly of the new year, “Positivity Promotes Peace” celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s real birthday and all the successes we’ve had in the past few months!  We will have student performances on drums, we will showcase our award-winning basketball team and kickoff our PSSA countdown in style.

Positivity Promotes Peace

I will be back to update more as time goes on and give some tips for starting SWPBIS and what i’ve learned from this time last year! Hope you are having a wonderful New Year

Behavior Management, Education, middle school, school assemblies, sprit week, urban education

The Vare Cares Way

Aside | Posted on by nataliesweetpea

Is it really only October?! It feels like school has been in session for at least 3 months already.  As I sit here lesson planning at 9pm on a Saturday, I can’t help but miss those summer afternoons in the local coffee shop.  Instead, I’m a few days ahead of my plans (thats a first this year!) but I also have a pretty extensive to-do is on my desk – of which I only crossed one thing off of today.  But you probably came here for an update on Behavior stuff…maybe? Well, that’s what you’re going to get.

As you may be aware, this year we implemented PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention & Support) at my Middle School.  We started giving our tickets for good behavior, have had school-wide character lesson plans and taught our expectations to our students.  Theres a slight difference in the overall culture of the school – but with new initiatives, big changes take time.  We are practicing being patient!  We have also had a few school-wide incentives.  We started off with Spirit Week and our first NUT (No Uniform Today) Day – which was a big success!  Surprisingly, there was not in increase in overall discipline referrals that day, which means we can continue to have them!  Check out the flyer that was sent home and displayed around the school for Spirit Week!


We had our first Vare Cares Awards Assembly last week which was a hit.  Our students are still practicing their behaviors in the auditorium and they needed a few reminders but overall, the behaviors are improving.  Students also were able to vote for a student in their class who exhibited cooperation in the month of September and these students received the Vare Cares Award.  Parents were invited to share in the celebration and it is always an amazing feeling to reward the students who are always doing the right thing.  The other great part is that all students voted (and teachers agreed with their choices!) and were able to notice which students exhibit the desired behaviors. Below you will see the Vare Cares Student Star voting sheet.

We also had a special guest join us to kick off our Vare Cares Assembly and talk about a topic that goes hand in hand with cooperation – bullying.   I hope the students felt as inspired as I did! 🙂