Hemlock Middle School

Hemlock Middle School designed a PBIS rubric called PAWS. PAWS as in Husky Paws, which is their mascot. And PAWS as in Practice Safety, Accept Responsibility, Wise Choices, and Show Respect.

Each lettered acronym serves as a rubric category with expected behaviors as the rubric items under each. When developing the rubric items, they focused on identifying behaviors that are exemplary and deserving of recognition. Within each situational behavior, there are sub-lessons that have been created over the years to give students an example of these behaviors.

Besides these, they also have three additional categories: Color Wars, Student Council, and Data Points. Both Color War and Student Council support their House System, which you can read more about here.

Data Points helps them track different passes as well as tardies.

Giving Points with the Behavior Rubric

Hemlock Middle wants their teachers to strive for 30 positive recorded interactions per day, and they also want at least a 10:1 ratio of positive behaviors to data points (bathroom passes, disruptions, etc).

Next year, they plan to focus on certain positive behaviors in a weekly fashion at the beginning of the year. For instance, after they discuss practicing safety, they will have staff focus on "catching" students practicing safety.

It’s working! They have recorded over 10,000 points this year, and students have earned over 200 rewards. Go Hemlock!