At the beginning of the year, the Berlin CSD teaching staff were tasked with creating collaborative expectations in their classrooms and have many ways that they follow up on these expectations. 5th grade, for example, has a community meeting/check-in at the end of each day – where concerns and/or shout outs can be brought up. Kindergarten notices when students may need some teaching related to treating each other with kindness and respect, and they will model this with a skit for the students, and then have them practice. The Shooting Stars class has a daily “good morning” circle where students practice their social skills and speech/language by greeting friends and adults in the classroom, before reviewing the calendar and upcoming birthdays.  Other examples throughout BES, include weekly or daily community circles, attendance heroes and gratitude pumpkins to name a few.

At BMHS, there were other similar examples.

Building a positive and supportive school culture is the first step to an effective MTSS Framework. Community Norms help to shape behavior – and this increased sense of belonging leads to increased accountability based on the development of intrinsic motivation.

An activity during the recent professional development day was a staff scavenger hunt.  The task was for staff to go on a scavenger hunt throughout their buildings and find examples of “community building” and/or “Community Expectations”. This activity was an opportunity for staff to see what their peers were doing, bring back ideas to their classrooms and collaborate.

Consistently working on building a strong school community is important to the staff and student body, allowing for a supportive learning, emotional and social environment.