How Westdale Middle School Decreased Suspensions by 44% and Truancy by 32%

Six Houses Built for Belonging

Ramona drew on her 15 years in high school education, where she’d built a PBIS program around the ABCs – Attendance, Behavior, and Course Performance. She brought the concept to her leadership team and told them to divide and conquer: find a platform that could track all three.

Coach Roma, the school’s direct administrator of LiveSchool, evaluated the platform and came back with conviction: “Miss Remble, this is amazing. I think it’s going to do everything we need it to do.”

They launched in July. Coach Roma designed six houses that reflected the remarkable diversity of Westdale’s campus – foreign language immersion magnet, gifted and talented programs, ESS and IDD populations, traditional students, a significant ELL community. Every house mixed sixth, seventh, and eighth graders with a cross-section of teachers and staff.

The rollout started at teacher inservice – before anyone mentioned the school calendar or instructional plans. Every staff member received a balloon with their name on it. Inside each balloon was a slip of paper revealing their house color. The room erupted as teachers popped balloons and found their teams.

“Hey, I’m in the Pink House – who else is in the Pink House with me?” The camaraderie started before students even arrived.

On the first day of school, Westdale held a pep rally. Most schools don’t do that on day one. “We wanted to pump up our vision and school spirit on day one,” Ramona says. Students learned their house assignments, discovered which peers and teachers shared their house, and were given the freedom to name their houses and create their own identities.

“My biggest thing was I want them to take ownership and have pride in their houses,” Ramona says.

Hawks Bucks and House Parties

Westdale’s campus currency, Hawks Bucks, is tied directly to LiveSchool points. Students earn points for meeting expectations – being in class on time, coming prepared with materials, showing respect – and those points convert to Hawks Bucks they can spend at the concession stand every Wednesday.

The system offers choice. Students can spend immediately on snacks, or save up for bigger rewards like a free dress day. Ramona and her team assumed everyone would save for free dress. They were wrong.

“No one has cashed in for free dress,” Ramona laughs. “They go to the concession stand every Wednesday.” But the system still works – the positive behaviors driving those points happen daily regardless of how students choose to spend them.

House competitions track attendance, behavior, and course performance. The winning house earns a House Party – part grade-level Olympics, part academic trivia, part celebration. Winners get to wear their house color instead of the uniform and carry the spirit stick until the next competition.

“The number one most asked question from students to me is: when’s our next house party?”

One student got sick on a Friday before a house party. The nurse said she needed to go home. She came to Ramona with tears in her eyes: “Miss Remble, tell them I’m not sick.” Most kids would love a three-day weekend. She was devastated about missing the house party.

Before the fall festival and trunk-or-treat, students needed to meet behavioral thresholds – no referrals, no suspensions. More than 80% qualified. Coach Roma told Ramona that if they’d set those same standards the previous year, probably only a third would have made it.

The Cell Phone Truce

Westdale implemented a policy requiring students to relinquish cell phones at the start of every class. The leadership team expected resistance – maybe even confrontation.

Instead, compliance came almost naturally. Students were engaged in class and motivated to earn points. The phones became an afterthought.

“The kids are in the habit,” Ramona says. “They’re being engaged in class and they have a motivation to stay on task because they know it will be recognized and rewarded.”

First-semester assessment data showed significant academic gains over previous years. Without phone distractions and with a positive incentive structure, students were focusing on instruction in ways the school hadn’t seen.

“Our teachers are loving it,” Ramona says, “because the kids are now fully engaged in the work.”

Winning Over the Skeptics

Not everyone was sold on the idea that focusing on positive behavior would address the school’s discipline crisis. Some teachers refused to use LiveSchool entirely.

Ramona’s approach was deliberate: put the adults in the system too. Every staff member was assigned to a house. When a house wins, adults get the recognition – their names on the morning announcements, teacher-of-the-month awards, the satisfaction of seeing their house in the lead.

“When they experienced how good it feels to be recognized for your hard work – even if you’re supposed to be doing it anyway – we started winning them over," Ramona says.

The school is now developing a complete teacher PBIS system for next year, tied to LiveSchool, with incentives like 15-minute chair massages and lunch on the principal.

Ramona is candid about the intrinsic-versus-extrinsic debate. “I struggled with this for a long time,” she says. “I was raised old school – you do what you’re supposed to do because you’re supposed to do it.” But working with students who lacked intrinsic motivation changed her thinking.

“The key to building intrinsic motivation when it is lacking – it starts with extrinsic motivation,” she says. “If you start extrinsically, children will learn to build intrinsic motivation.” She challenges skeptics to try building an adult PBIS system first. “Let them experience how good it feels. It’s infectious.”

Another trust-building move: monthly grade-level meetings where Ramona addresses students directly – not the traditional teacher team meeting. Students get a Q&A. They ask questions, make suggestions, and hear the reasoning behind decisions.

On an 88-question accreditation survey, the highest-ranked statement from students was: “My principal makes decisions in our best interest and to keep us safe.”

Continuous Improvement for All

The transformation has been dramatic. Student suspensions decreased by 44%. Truancy dropped by 32% – with first-semester truant students plummeting from 133 to just 4. Student fights decreased by 30%. The school performance score rose from a D to a C.

Visitors to Westdale consistently say the same thing: “When we come here, it just feels different.”

Ramona describes standing at the front of campus needing to send something to the back building. She waited 15 minutes for a student to walk by and hand it to. None came. They were all in class. The math coach looked at her and said, “Yeah – they’ve bought in to what we expect here.”

Perhaps the most telling indicator of change: teachers who told Ramona in the spring that they were on their last leg – “I’ll give you a shot, but if this doesn’t work I’m gone” – are now stepping into leadership roles, creating programs, and launching clubs.

“It has ignited other people,” Ramona says. “We have so much going on. It’s the type of exhaustion that makes you feel fulfilled.”

When asked what message she’d put on a billboard for every principal in the country, Ramona doesn’t hesitate: Continuous Improvement for All.

“A lot of times we put pressure on children to go from here to here,” she says. “If we focus on continuous improvement – whether that’s large gains or just a little – we can celebrate small wins. It keeps us from burning out. It’s more realistic. And it creates hope for students who are starting really low.”

One of her leadership team members described it best when asked what she was most proud of this school year: “That we did what we said we were going to do.”