This year Oak Park is implementing the RCD (Responsibility-Centered Discipline) model into school discipline as part of their Positive Behavior Support Framework and Universal Behavior Plan. I asked Chad Valadez to share an update on their work. See below for more information:
Larry Thompson is partnering with Oak Park as a liaison, and presenter of the Give ‘em five technique. The Oak Park staff has dove in, and is taking risks with this new way of thinking, and positive results are surfacing. Specifically, in the relationships between adults and students. Listed below are some quotes from Larry on why RCD is needed, as well as a couple testimonials from OP staff.
"If students are not held responsible to fix the problems they create, they will not see those problems as their own. A student who feels no weight of responsibility to change has no reason to come up with a solution" - Larry Thompson RCD presenter
Give ‘em five conversations:
These conversations are highly personalized, because educators decide what words they will use — and the themes do not need to be addressed in any particular order. The goal of “Give ‘em Five” is to help educators feel comfortable and natural while delivering a message of responsibility. The five themes are:
- Support
– Use supportive statements that connect to your relationship with the student or identify a strength that she possesses.
- Expectation
– Let the student know the expectation you have for him in the class.
- Breakdown
– Communicate where you see the expectation breaking down or failing to be met.
- Benefit
– Tell the student how meeting the expectation benefits her.
- Closure
– Determine whether the situation has been resolved or whether the conversation is at a place where you can feel comfortable moving on.
"The steps in this process can be taught to anyone with any skill level. It can be put into practice immediately, and we as teachers and staff began using it the very next day. We even had teachers go home after the PD day with Larry and start to use the techniques with their own families.” - Oak Park Teacher
Tardy policy insights from Will Mayle:
We are beginning to see breakthroughs happening with many of our students. Just today alone, we called only 15 kids down to the office for tardiness. This is a low number to begin with. Most days are around 40 plus. In those 15 kids who had detentions scheduled due to being tardy to school or class, four had developed a plan and asked if they could reschedule and they gave reasons for needing the rescheduling. They even went a step further and had dates available that they could make up their detentions.
This is one of the ways that we have been coaching them. We ask them to open up mature dialogue with their teachers to find a solution and not throw up road blocks, such as “I can’t do that”. Own the problem and then develop a plan for changing the behavior. The process is showing gains with students of all ages. The students are beginning to see that adults are here as support, not always disciplinarians.
By adults offering support and benefit for students during tough situations, and students owning their part of the conflict as well as developing a plan for change, we are starting to see less referrals. More importantly we are not seeing the repeat offender for the same types of conflicts.
Chad Valadez and his team will be sharing more on this process at the Secondary Universal Behavior Training this week. For more questions, please feel free to contact him or Dr. Christopher Sartain.
Thank you Oak Park for all your hard work in building this process with students and helping them make respectful and responsible choices!
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