By Adam Schwartz & Zoe Graves
The Brownell Beat
Brownell MS
1st Place
MS Division, News Writing
Pro/Con Editorial Columns
PBIS is a great organizational tool
Many students have different feelings about the new system at Brownell Middle School PBIS. My opinion about this new program is that it can help many students in a positive way. The reason that this program was created was to help students very much.
Students may not like it but it will help them foreverbecause being organized is a key piece in life. PBIS can really help students. PBIS has many great things that it does to help Brownell students. The best thing is that this new program helps students be ready, everyday, for every class at Brownell. There are five things that are being prepared for class, homework complete, being safe, not being rude in class, not being tardy, and not using cell phones when you are not supposed to, all students must do these things to be successful every day at Brownell.
If each student does this everyday they will be very successful. For some students they may worry each day about getting a signature for something. I particularly think that this works very well for students. It pushes students to have everything so they will not get a signature again. Students may not want to get one but I think it pushes them to want to be even better at bringing all of their required materials.
PBIS does help students, but for some it might be more pressure. Many students at Brownell do everything that is necessary on the PBIS card on a daily basis. Once in a great while even people who bring everything all the time might forget something once but it’s only a one time thing. This will still help even students who organized the best stay organized. A nice thing I think would work would be if students got no signatures for one whole semester. For half of the school year students used PBIS and since they did well with the PBIS card I think they can be very responsible without the PBIS card for the second semester.
Another idea that I think would be good to do is let students who have no signatures carry over to the next quarter. I think that PBIS really helps students who might be having much trouble with being organized.
——————-
Program focuses on negatives
PBIS is Brownell’s new positive behavior system. Every time you forget something for a class, you’re tardy, or didn’t complete your homework, you get a signature. Most teachers love the new PBIS system, but what about the students?
I would think that the majority students at Brownell are organized, on time, and respectful in class. PBIS could actually make those of students less organized. At their locker during passing time, students could be so worried about having everything for their classes that they lose track of time and are tardy. So all that trouble they went through to not get a signature was a total waste of time, since a tardy is now a signature on your PBIS card.
Meg Gleason, 7th grader said, “I don’t really like PBIS because it focuses too much on the negatives. You could be a really good student, or do something really good, then forget a ruler or be a minute tardy for class and then you get a signature. PBIS is just too negative.”
PBIS is a new thing for everyone BUT the 7th graders, since they were the guinea pigs for the entire operation last year in 6th grade.
Last year, at the end of the third and fourth quarter, if you had less than five signatures you got to participate in a fun day. Students could choose to go with a teacher and play games and dodge ball, or stay in the MPR and watch a movie during one afternoon at the end of a quarter.
This year though, there may not be any fun or games. The fun day last year seemed like an incentive to try to make students want to get less signatures so they could participate. But since there may not be any fun day this year, do students stop trying?
It’s the sixth week of school and there have already been students with more than ten signatures. Could that be simply because 6th and 8th graders are still getting used to the system, or is it because 7th graders don’t have to worry about missing the fun day?
All in all, PBIS is a nice idea, but does Brownell really need it? Our school is full of hardworking students who don’t need PBIS bringing them down. Is the new Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports(PBIS) really positive?