Soylent Green May Be People, But PBIS Is Candy

PBIS is all the rage in school districts across the country. No...Sun Prairie didn't just dream this up all by themselves. What, exactly, is PBIS? PBIS stands for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. It's an offshoot of the IDEA program (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). You may see/hear it as SWPBS (School-wide Positive Behavior Supports). In a nutshell, PBIS is a system of behavior modification, with three stages of intervention.

Primary intervention is targeted to all students and is s system designed to clearly identify which behaviors are acceptable and which are not. Exhibiting positive behavior is rewarded in some fashion. In theory, about 80-85% of students respond to this primary level of intervention. The overall target is to develop a system in which positive reinforcements (for "acceptable/desired" behaviors) outnumber negative reinforcements (for unacceptable behaviors) by about 4:1. In this way, kids overwhelmingly see that "being good" is the place to be. You get rewards.

PBIS extends further to the 2nd tier, kids that do not respond well to these primary tactics. These kids represent about 10-15% of the population and are those that potentially are at risk for "failure", or at the very least not realizing their academic potential. This group, however is not in need of individualized attention, but rather is targeted in small groups (a modernized form of "group" therapy). The third tier, which includes about 5-10% of students, covers those students who require individualized attention to develop positive behaviors and squelch those behaviors which are not acceptable.

The Case of The Starlight Mints
This is an example of PBIS in action. We had the occasion to review some e-mail correspondence between two administrators recently. One of which was an upper level administrator at the high school. While we'll be accused of glossing over the details, the simple fact is that during this past school year an administrator happened to visit the high school cafeteria and found that a staff member was handing out "Starlight" mints to high school students as they passed through the lunch line. Noting that such a practice is contraindicative to the district's wellness policy, an inquiry was made. It seems that if the high school students said "please or thank you" while passing through the lunch line, they were rewarded with a Starlight mint for their manners.

OK..let's pause for a minute. On one level, this seems innocuous. But, what are these kids? Our Pavlovian dogs? And does anyone think that you can teach a high school student manners with a mint? Come on, people! These kids are smart enough to parrot a word or phrase to get a treat. Adopting some new learned behavior they are not, as Yoda would say. They want a candy, so they utter the phrase. End of story.

On another level, we need to ask the question, "THIS is the answer from our very well compensated professionals?" Candy? Really!
Aren't we just trading one problem for another?
Sure, getting a candy bar or treat may secure good behavior in the class—or lunch—room, but what are we really teaching kids with this approach? Is candy the only thing we can come up with as a “reward” for good –or expected—behavior?  Doesn't that conflict with nutritional wellness philosophies, not to mention root psychological issues regarding food as a reward system?

It's gone WAY Beyond Mints
Just so it's clear that we're not talking about a few isolated mints, an open records request for a finite period of time revealed the following:

• $1,938 for candy (LOTS of snickers bars.....can you say "peanut allergies???)
• $500 for soda, including $65 for 20 oz. individual bottles)
• $448 for foods of minimal (or non-existant) nutritional value): donuts, Twinkies, PopTarts, Ho-Hos
• $29 for gum. Gum! The scourge of teachers everywhere!
• "Venom" Energy drinks (Really?  Energy drinks?  Like that won't have them bouncing off the wall)
• Over $55 for B.O.S.S. subs (Big Oversized Sub Sandwiches)
• And none of this includes the cost of things like sunscreen, sunblock, alka seltzer, swim suit, pruner

...and these costs are not for an entire year, but just a few months of purchases!
The district really wants to fund some new initiatives, including stipends for "Response to Intervention" (RTI) one-on-one tutoring assistance.  They want to raise your taxes to do it.  Do any of those highly paid educators understand that the $2,000 spent on candy alone over this finite period would pay for 80 hours of RTI assistance???

Like chewin' a little Juicy Fruit, PBIS may be good for the soul, but it has to be done with a non-food based reward system. Obesity is a major problem in this country, and whether you agree or disagree, the facts support that food-based reward systems are only contributing to the problem. From yet another angle, we're buying these "rewards" (candy) with taxpayer dollars. And that is unacceptable. If the district management--our leaders-- insist that the only way to reach these kids is through food, then let them obtain funding from School-Community Organizations (SCOs) or booster clubs. Maybe even the SP Education Foundation will play Santa in bring us a whole bagful of Starlight mints. They sure have taken in a great deal of cash from naming rights for pieces of the high school!


I've been impolite and ornery
My teachers ask me,
“Is something wrong with you”
My mama always told me
I need to say “please” and “thank you”

But PBIS packs quite a punch
It's not difficult to understand
Why I’m only polite at lunch

I do it for the mints…
I do it 'cuz my mouth comes alive
I do it for the rush…
That I get from the Starlight Mints they give us
---with apologies to Smile Empty Soul and  “Bottom of a Bottle”