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A pilot program is being launched at Leesburg Elementary School to help reduce distractions due to behavior issues in the classroom.
Warsaw Community Schools Director of Special Services Kelly Meeks told the Warsaw School Board Tuesday that over the past couple years, the special education leadership team had explored ways to better support students coming to school with significant behavior issues. One of the ideas they had was to create a behavior classroom designed to provide explicit instruction on behavior skills.
Leesburg Elementary School was selected to pilot the program based on classroom availability, identified student need and enough skilled special education staff for there to be a teacher to run the behavior classroom while there are two other special education teachers able to support the academic needs for other students.
Leesburg Principal Nathan Polston said there are multiple reasons for the program but the biggest reason is because students were missing academic services due to student misbehavior.
Last year, the three special education teachers at Leesburg were doing academic and behavior services and a lot of times behavior services were trumping academic services because the behavior issues were so severe. Students’ behavior issues were not only disrupting their own academic services, but other students’ as well.
Discussions were held about what could be done to help teachers being disrupted because of students’ behavior issues. Too many students were missing too many services, Polston said.
“We wanted to develop something where we could separate the behaviors from the academics and just really focus on behaviors, because if behaviors are getting in the way, kids aren’t learning anyways. So we really had to tackle behaviors and really had to focus on behaviors and those services,” Polston said.
In the program, there is a specialized room where behavior needs and services are prioritized, he said. Right now, there are three full-time students taught in that room. Special education teacher Lauren Hagen, who is the teacher in the behavior room, said, on average, she has a caseload of about 26 students a day for varying amounts of time. Polston said 23 of the 26 students are part of the general education classroom during portions of the day, but are still utilizing the behavior room.
Polston said just because a student isn’t in the behavior room full-time doesn’t mean they aren’t getting behavior services. Of the students Hagen sees, seven have an emotional disability, six are on the autism spectrum, 11 have a developmental delay and two have an intellectual disability. Polston said the common factor of those students is they all have a behavior service goal within their Individualized Educational Plan.
There were things to figure out, such as caseload and teacher of record versus teacher of service, Polston said. Hagen said some of the things she had to figure out included when she was pulling students from academic services for behavior services, as well as the layout of her room. Her room includes a sensory space and a work-with-teacher station.
Board member Matt Deuel asked if the students they see use the behavior room are ones who know they are in a bad place and need to go to the behavior room for a break or were students who were told to go to the room. Polston said it was a mix of the two. Hagen said there are some students who are aware they are in a bad head space and come to her room because of it. Then there are some students who tell students to go there “and chill out.”
Board Vice President Tom Westerhof asked if the staff at Leesburg are trained to use the behavior room instead of “battle back and forth” with students. Polston said they were. Hagen said the staff is very supportive in helping.
While the program isn’t perfect, it is going well, Polston said, noting some of the comments he’s heard so far this school year is that teachers have been able to teach as much as they did all of last school year. He said they’d rather have students be successful through this program than being sent home or being suspended due to behavior issues.
Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert said WCS is hoping to take the program districtwide at some point.
