Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports (PBIS)
Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports (PBIS) is a way to create a positive school culture and individualized behavior supports needed for a school to be an effective learning environment for all students.
At Sierra Linda, we know our PBIS program as the PAWS Program. PAWS is an acronym for our school-wide behavior expectations. It stands for professional, action, work together, and safe. To see PAWS in action around campus and in the classroom, please see our behavior matrix in English or our behavior matrix in Spanish.
When a staff or faculty member sees a student demonstrating one of the school expectations, the student receives a PAWS card. Students scratch off the PAWS card and can win prizes, extra time to lunch, or enter a drawing for larger items.
Nationwide, over 19,000 schools have implemented a PBIS program of their own. Researchers have extensively studied PBIS. Their results show a decrease in classroom disruptions; a decrease in office discipline referrals, suspensions, and expulsions; and improved academic achievement and school climate.
At Sierra Linda, we have seen some of these same effects during the last four years of PAWS on campus.
