Behavior Plan

Being a responsible student, capable of making constructive choices throughout the day, is an important part of growing up, achieving success, and living happily.  At Mills, all children are expected to follow The Lifelong Guidelines listed below.  These, in essence, are the rules we live by in our classroom so we are consistent across the school.

During the first week of school, the children will be learning about each of the guidelines through literature, role-play, and engaging activities.  You can help support our school's efforts by reinforcing the guidelines at home and expecting your child to make good choices, whether at home or at school.  Consistency is key.  
Every morning, each child will begin with their own name-clip at their desk.  As they show they're ready to learn, they'll be invited to put their clip on the green card, "I am ready to learn!"  Throughout the day, as I notice on-task behaviors and effort, the children will have the opportunity to move their clips to the yellow and blue cards. Children ending their school day on yellow or blue are doing a great job making constructive and collaborative choices.  

If a child is having difficulty following any of The Lifelong Guidelines, their clip will be moved to orange, "There's a problem to work out."  Usually a little discussion is enough to redirect the child's behavior.  As soon as the child begins to make positive changes and is "ready to learn," the clip can be moved back to green.  I think it's important to recognize children's efforts to make improvements and not penalize them by keeping them on orange or red.  

If a child ends the day on red, a behavior worksheet will be sent home for the child and parent to discuss and complete.  This rarely happens, but when it does it's an indication that the problem wasn't solved by the end of the day.  When this occurs, I think it's important to make the family aware of the difficulty and partner with them to help their child improve their choices. 

You will know how your child is doing each day by looking at the calendar inside their Home Folder.  We will use colored dots that correspond to the chart above. 

I also use whole-class incentives.  This tends to encourage a greater degree of accountability toward teamwork and strengthens our classroom community.  For each day that ends with every student on green, yellow, or blue, a puzzle piece will be awarded to the whole class.  Once all the puzzle pieces have been earned and the puzzle has been assembled, the class will earn a special reward.

If you ever have any questions about our discipline plan or your child's behavior, please call me at school or email me at knight@manateeschools.net.

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