How the City of York Built a District-Wide Culture of PRIDE Across Every School

The $30 Waffle Party That Became a Tradition

While the district provides the framework, each building principal has autonomy to create reward events tailored to their students. At the elementary and middle levels, students redeem LiveSchool points at weekly school stores stocked with small motivating items. At the high school, students can purchase tickets to dances and sporting events with their points instead of paying the standard admission fee.

The event that surprised everyone was the waffle party. Dr. Jones proposed the idea: teachers would bring their own waffle irons from home, and the school would provide batter and toppings. The leadership team was skeptical, but Jones pushed forward. The total cost to feed 500 students came to roughly thirty dollars.

Students had to save 200 LiveSchool points over the course of a month to earn a spot. The event became so popular that it is now a quarterly tradition. Jones recalls having to check with the building maintenance coordinator beforehand to make sure the electrical system could handle twenty waffle irons running simultaneously. There were some tripped breakers, but the maintenance team was ready.

Other events follow a similar model: fun days, bingo nights, fall festivals, ice cream socials, and movie days. Each quarter brings something new, and students know that accumulating points opens the door to participation. The variety keeps motivation high without requiring significant budget commitments.

Coaching Teachers with a Tiered Model

Dr. Jones applies the same tiered framework used for students directly to staff implementation. His approach borrows from PBIS itself: tier one staff are those who meet or exceed the district’s expectations for using LiveSchool. Tier two staff need a bit more support – perhaps they are new to the platform or unfamiliar with how to integrate it into their classroom routines. Tier three staff are the seasoned veterans who resist the system or are reluctant to change their established methods.

Jones uses both quantitative and qualitative data from LiveSchool to assess where each teacher falls. Weekly reports show who is assigning points and at what frequency. He shares these reports transparently with staff, recognizing top assigners through email blasts and even awarding them LiveSchool points on their own profiles. The openness creates accountability without confrontation.

The tier three conversations are the ones Jones values most. He invites resistant teachers onto the leadership team, reasoning that if they are going to poke holes in every initiative, they should do it before the initiative reaches the rest of the staff. About fifty percent of his current leadership team members were once resistors. Now they are the first to stress-test new ideas, and by the time a proposal reaches the broader staff, the most obvious objections have already been addressed.

Positive Data for Every Student

One of the most striking applications of LiveSchool in York is something most educators would not expect: courtroom advocacy. Dr. Jones describes being called to court proceedings for students on multiple occasions. In most cases, the information he is asked to provide is negative – attendance records, disciplinary incidents, referral histories. LiveSchool gives him something different to bring.

He pulls up the student’s profile in LiveSchool Insights and walks through what the data shows: the behaviors they were rewarded for, how often they were recognized, and what they spent their points on in the school store. When everyone else at the table is discussing what a student did wrong, Jones can present quantitative evidence of what that student does right.

The district made a deliberate choice to support this approach. All buildings have deactivated the demerits feature in LiveSchool, ensuring that the platform captures only positive interactions. When a parent receives a notification from LiveSchool, it is always good news. This decision was strategic: many families in the district had effectively tuned out school communications because outreach was historically associated with negative reports. By keeping the platform exclusively positive, the district is rebuilding trust with families one notification at a time.

The Push for Parent Engagement

The district’s next major initiative centers on increasing parental involvement. Dr. Jones describes the challenge candidly: many parents have stopped reading communications from the school because past outreach was almost always about something their child did wrong. The negative association has created a barrier that good intentions alone cannot overcome.

The strategy is to use LiveSchool’s Parent Portal as the bridge. As teachers award students points for behaviors aligned with the PRIDE model, parents will receive automatic notifications on their devices. The message is immediate and specific: a teacher just recognized your child for being prepared, for showing respect, or for demonstrating engagement.

Jones envisions this as the foundation for more productive conversations when issues do arise. If the first fifty interactions a parent has with the school are positive, the fifty-first – even if it addresses a concern – lands in a fundamentally different context. The school is no longer the place that only calls with bad news. It is the place that has been consistently recognizing their child’s effort and growth.

The district is also exploring ways to reward students and staff specifically for activities that increase parent participation, creating a feedback loop where engagement itself becomes a recognized behavior.

Creating Opportunities for Success

When asked what message he would put on a billboard for every assistant principal in the country, Dr. Jones does not hesitate: create opportunities for success. The phrase captures his philosophy about the role of educators, particularly those working in urban environments where students may face significant challenges outside of school.

Jones applies a ratio to guide his approach: for every negative experience a student faces emotionally, he tries to provide at least three positive counterweights. He recognizes students for small actions – picking up a pencil off the floor, helping a classmate, keeping the cafeteria clean – because for some students, those moments of recognition at school are the only positive reinforcement they receive all day.

He addresses the common pushback from staff who question why students should be rewarded for things they ought to do anyway. His response is direct: many students are not getting that positive praise at home. During the eight hours a day and five days a week that students are in school, educators serve as their primary source of encouragement. LiveSchool makes that recognition frictionless – Jones can pull up the app on his phone, search for a student’s name, and award points in seconds.

The ripple effect is visible in daily interactions. Students who have been recognized begin seeking out opportunities to be noticed again. They approach Jones in the hallway pointing out their own positive behaviors, eager for acknowledgment. What starts as extrinsic motivation gradually builds the confidence that Jones believes is necessary for intrinsic motivation to take root.