- Hey everybody, I'm Doug.
That's Connor. And you're listening
to the Bethel School District Presents podcast.
And we have a fantastic show for you today.
Members of our district's behavior task force will be
joining us in just a few minutes here in the studio
to talk about the work that they're doing behind the scenes
that is impacting classrooms across the district.
But Connor, before we get there, you know, we have
to ask each other some silly question.
And this one comes in from one
of our loyal listeners, and it goes like this.
If you could have an unlimited supply of something
for the rest of your natural born life,
what would it be and why? Of course.
- Oh, that's easy. Cash money, bread dough, bacon,
cheddar, cash, baby.
- That is the correct answer.
But we're not gonna let it be that easy.
And I'm not gonna let you pick credit card points
or casino vouchers or something like that.
We're gonna drift away from money
and pick something different.
'cause I feel like picking cash is like saying you want more
wishes when you get one wish.
- That's true. That's a good point, Doug. Well done.
I don't know Then , I have no answer.
That's, that's really where I'm at.
So I'm gonna kick it back to you.
Unlimited supply of what? Young Douglas,
- Well, I've thought about this for quite some time.
I buy gum to keep in my car just so I don't have coffee,
breath when I arrive at meetings and things like that.
And I really hate buying it
because it just seems like such a waste.
My breath is fresh for like 10 seconds
before I revert to the steaming pile
of halitosis that I normally am.
But I do arrive at meetings minty, fresh and ready to go.
So I, I do keep buying it. I would love to not buy that gum.
That's what I would want an unlimited supply of.
- So gum, you're telling me out of everything in the world,
you're choosing gum.
Doug, I will get you an unlimited supply of gum.
It'll cost me like $50. . Be creative, Doug.
But you already made your choice. Live with it.
And I have made my choice
and I am picking unlimited talk talk
- Connor, that is a fantastic answer.
And if you were like Albert Einstein,
I would want you to have unlimited time.
I know what you do with it in that instance,
but you are you, what are you using this time for?
What? Are you gonna watch the office for the fifth time
- ?
Yeah, pretty much. Why not? Come on, let me live.
- Well that actually does sound pretty great.
While I'm chewing my unlimited supply of gum,
I'll be a little jealous of your answer of time.
And speaking of time, let's not waste any more of it.
Let's go around the table
and introduce the members of the behavior task force
that have joined us here today.
If you could each take a moment, introduce yourself,
where you're from, and let's have you answer
today's question too.
If you could have an unlimited supply
of anything, what would it be?
- Jennifer Bonner from Spanaway Lake High School
and I would say chocolate just
'cause everything's better with chocolate.
- Uh, Tracy Overstreet.
I am at Cedar Crest Middle School
and the vice president of BEA.
And I would say tacos
'cause you could have all kinds of tacos.
- I'm Melissa Munson Merritt.
I'm the principal over at Camas Prairie Elementary.
And if I could have one thing in unlimited supply,
it would be the giant cookies from Metropolitan Market.
- Shirley Anderson, Thompson Elementary.
I went in a whole different direction
and I said photocopies, .
I would like to be able to use the copy machine
as much as I would like.
- All right. I'm Brittany Corpus,
I'm the principal at Cougar Mountain Middle School,
and I would say positive energy. Okay.
- These, these are all great ,
these are all great answers.
Uh, well let, let's dive right in.
So Brittany, how'd the behavior task force start
and how has the task force evolved over the years?
- Sure. So, um, behavior can kind of be at, at the root
of the things that make our jobs a
little more challenging every day.
And, um, Chad
and Kelly, sometimes we call them Shelly, they wanted
to work directly with like the union and the teachers
and get us all on the same page,
all having conversations together.
Uh, and it really started with looking at data
and then research and law
and all of our different perspectives of
what we're experiencing, um, in our different roles.
And then having all of that on the table
and honestly learning for the first year,
it felt like we were really learning a lot.
- Uh, the behavior task force initially had recommendations
that ended up as part of the BEA contract.
What was it like to see the work
you've done get implemented like that?
- I really felt that it showed that the district heard
what we were saying as teachers.
Um, when we started the behavior task force way back
before Covid, it was nice that we came together
with the district with both admin and teachers,
and then when they put it in the contract, it was, yes,
they have heard us and
they're actually willing to work with us.
- So I'm on, on the other side a little bit
during bargaining to get it into the contract.
We spent hours, I would say days talking about it
and what we need in there, what we shouldn't put in there,
but it was really good conversations
to move this work forward.
- So Jennifer, can you give us some real world examples
of types of behaviors you've seen in the classroom
that this committee helps to move the needle on?
- For me, I would say it's our minors when we start talking
about minors and majors.
So identifying what really is gonna be our tier one, um,
issues that we can deal with and identify those
and then the strategies to help build those relationships
so we can be addressing those issues in those minors instead
of having to always be pushing it off to the administration
and or having to become a major instead
of being able to to minor.
So it'd be blurting out in class
or just the positive interactions and between student
and student, student and adult.
Um, yeah, I would have to say
that would be something they would see every day.
- Um, it also helped with school-wide expectations. Mm-Hmm.
where one teacher might not mind if their kids
were walking down the hallway, chit-chatting
or in the bathroom chit-chatting.
And this helped schools come together
and say, okay, we're gonna set
expectations for the whole school.
And it gave us a starting point for that.
- So a little consistency. Yes.
School to school, everyone kind of knows
what they're looking at and can judge based on that.
So late last year, a group, you went
to the Hannigan conference with an eye on the content
and implications for Bethel itself.
What do you take away from something like that
and how will it help Bethel
teachers? We'll start with you Jennifer.
- I feel that going to that conference,
it served a couple different purposes.
One, it, um, solidified
and validated the work that we're doing, let us know
that we're on the right track and probably leaps
and bounds above other districts.
It also reemphasized the need to have clear structures.
- So the Hannigan solution Tree is coming
to Bethel this summer to present their consistently
recognized for their work and behavior
and support and systems.
What do you think that's gonna do for Team Bethel, Melissa?
- Gosh, we had the opportunity to go to that conference
as a behavior team and we learned so much.
Uh, we learned so much about ourselves
and not only about ourselves,
but also the systems that other schools had so
that we could really translate
for our own context here in Bethel
and go, Hmm, I wonder if that's something that we could work
around or if that's something we need
to take another look at as a team
once we come back to school.
So I know that when we went into that conference,
we had this idea,
like Brittany was saying earlier about tier three
and really going, shoot, we need to, we need
to modify our intervention system, if you will.
But really we walked away from the conference going, wow,
if we set up a strong tier one system,
it's good for all kids.
And so having the hannigan's come in the summer
for our professional learning days is going
to support all kids, which in turn gives support
to all educators
and they are really smart educators who have a lot
of really great resources that can support us in a way
that makes sense for our district
and in a way that doesn't put us in a box necessarily,
but allows us to, to take back to our schools, have some
through lines throughout the district,
but also set up some very strong systems to support all
of our schools, all of our educators and all of our kids.
- Tracy, what'd you get outta the conference? Um,
- For me it was the importance of having systems
and structures into place.
They were very heavy on how to collect data,
putting your tier one, um, systems in place
and making 'em concrete
so then you could address the twos and the threes.
Um, especially being special ed,
- It really sounds like it's important
to have a solid structure that everybody's familiar with,
so no one has to reinvent the wheel.
Jennifer, can you talk to us a little bit about
how the task force works together to make that happen?
- The work that we're doing is collaborative. Yeah.
We have teachers at all grade bands.
We have administrators in the building,
and then we also have district administrators.
And it's just a collaborative effort in
that when it doesn't feel top down,
it feels like it's a decision
and, um, laying out the work that we do, it's easier
to come back to our colleagues
and say, no, this is, this is coming from us.
This isn't coming top down. Mm-Hmm .
And then I feel like people are more receptive to that
and then that kind of gets us the fire going
and then gets the work moving forward.
- And, and I think that this team has been so proactive in
that because sometimes as teachers we see our perspective,
but we don't see admin's perspective
and we don't see district's perspective.
And this team has allowed us to interact all together
and see each other's perspectives.
And they're not that far off of each other.
I mean, you know, it might be a little bit off,
but for the most part we are all on the same page
and we all want the same thing.
You know, in the end, we all want student success.
And I think that that's what the important thing
of this team is, is
that we are all working towards the same goal
and now we're able to see that on a human level.
- I remember the meeting we had at Thompson,
remember we were up in the library and, uh, we thought
that we had the answer as administrators
and our teacher cohort
that was joining us thought they had the answers for
how we were gonna fix behavior.
And by the end of that meeting
or the next, I'm not sure which one,
we all realized we didn't have the answers, no answers.
And so we just really had to engage in
a learning process together.
- It was super powerful to hear each perspective though.
And really truly not just in the passion
or the moment of when it feels like a big situation
and you know, we gotta make a call in the moment.
It's like really talking through all the layers
of all the different types of kids,
what's happening, what's going on?
What are the different systems at different schools
and what's working, what's not working?
And that, that also kind of led us to the next step.
The next layer was, okay, so what are, what's,
what is research telling us about what, what works?
What's going well in some schools where,
where where's like different places
that we can like collaborate
and calibrate on putting some systems in place?
And so that, that kind
of got us talking about the next phase of,
of this work and then Covid hit. So.
- And how did Covid affect the task force?
And do you feel like it set you back a lot
or was it something you were
able to get right back on top of?
- I think we had to obviously take a pause.
We all did, um, and tend to the health
and safety pieces in our buildings to ensure
that we kept kids safe
and kept them learning as best as we could.
But I think once we started to come together again,
it was like we missed no time at all.
We just picked right up where we left off and started.
All those relationships were already built
between the task force members
and so we, it was good to see people again.
It was like we were old pals
and we were able to really just start
to dig into the work again.
And yeah, our perspective was a little different.
Behaviors changed after Covid and some were intensified.
Some of our strategies needed to be modified.
And so yeah, we just started to dig into the learning again
and figure out how we can best meet our kids' needs as well
as educator's needs.
Right? It's about kids and staff.
We need to keep them both growing and learning and,
and in schools where the culture is positive and successful.
- Well, and one advantage for our district to kind of have
that baseline Yeah.
Of having a task force. It
- Was like, thank goodness that we already have
- This because I'm sure not every district had that
and they all came back
and they all were dealing with those behaviors,
but some of them were probably starting at scratch right
there where at least we had this understanding.
Um, so do you feel like there was a big benefit coming back
from COVID and kind of already having a leg up there?
- Yeah, 100% because we, we knew
that the social emotional health of our, our kids,
everything was amplified, but we also knew that
that was already at the root.
And then for it to just be amplified after Covid
and coming back and us already knowing
and trusting each other as a team
to make good decisions together, looking at like the menu
of resources and having the team decide kind
of some next steps that need to happen.
It was really powerful but had, had, we have to start fresh,
it would, it, we'd come from a less trusting place
of here's what we really need to do.
And I would say that the whole team is really having a great
voice in what needs, what's the next step, what needs
to happen and then like how do we get all of our schools,
we have a very big district
and how do we get everybody on the same level at tier one
and what does that look like support wise?
And just having those constant conversations together has
been really valuable.
I feel like I have a, I'm, I'm working with a team of people
that I trust and respect and truly enjoy spending time with.
And I think what we year five now? Yes. Something like
- That.
That's amazing to have that continuity. Yeah.
Uhhuh for that long. Yeah.
- And I wanna point out, Brittany said that tiered approach
or you know, the tiered stra tiered strategies, I think that
that was something we didn't
necessarily forecast at the time.
We got the, this work started with the behavior task force
or the behavior health team.
And as we started to, as a district could start to go kind
of on the journey of learning what multi-tiered systems
of support actually look like in a school
and in a district was really nice
because we were able to layer in the learning about MTSS
with some of our work around behavior.
And so it just kind of flowed hand in hand
and it became a very natural process
to have these conversations
and really start to talk about our tiered approach
for supporting students in an equitable manner.
- That's gonna wrap up our show this week.
Thank you to all the members of the behavior task force
that joined us today.
And circling back to our question from the top,
if you could have an unlimited supply of something
for the rest of your life, Connor,
I want quality podcast guests like we had today.
- Absolutely Douglas. And on that note,
join us next week when we have a very special guest.
Dwayne the Rock Johnson will be in studio.
- Uh, actually, actually, uh,
we did hear back from his publicist.
They basically told us the cease and desist
and stop emailing them. Ah,
- Shocks.
I figured that might happen.
Well tune in next week to see which guests we do have.
- We'll see you next week everybody.