Strategies: Vista Verde School

Vista Verde has an established STAR team who routinely identifies targets and challenges of the school’s three–tiered model of intervention. Over the past four years, the STAR team has evolved into a primary prevention green team, a secondary prevention yellow team and tertiary red team. Each of the team members has been involved with developing, in–servicing and implementing research–based principles to students, staff and parents.

Building a culture of social competence by teaching school–wide expectations is the primary responsibility of the green team. The team has developed a teaching matrix and teaching routine scripts for an array of school settings. The school year always includes an afternoon of student instruction in different settings where they see and practice positive and negative behaviors to learn STAR. The team also motivates students, staff and parents to acknowledge appropriate behaviors on a regular basis once the skill is learned. On–going recognition and attention is given to students through tangible and intangible reinforcers such as specific verbal or written acknowledgement, the distribution of STAR cards and monthly STAR assemblies. The green team has also created a STAR notebook which is distributed to all teachers as a reference to program components which can be used in the classroom setting. These components include the teaching matrix, sample lesson plans for teaching classroom routines, essential practices for classroom management and reporting forms.

The use of school–wide data for decision–making is the focus of the yellow team. Vista Verde has been utilizing SWIS (School–wide Information Systems) as a data base for gathering, summarizing and reporting school climate to staff and parents at monthly staff meetings and electronic messages. There is an on–site trained coach who inputs information from referral forms and prints out information to be analyzed at the monthly yellow team meeting. At that time, it is determined if there is a need for school–wide re–teaching, targeted group or individual interventions. Secondary prevention support follows a two–step flow chart model with embedded research–based practices. These "best practices" include: classroom management best practices, peer coaching, 5–9–1 feedback plan and student check–in contracts.

The red team is designed after a tertiary prevention model for individuals with behavioral and academic challenges which have been identified through multiple reporting systems. System examples include Student Study Team, Plato Learning Inc., and SWIS (School–wide Information Systems) The team consists of the administrator, school psychologist, classroom teacher, parent and student all working together to promote positive change. A comprehensive systemic approach includes a functional assessment and the development of a positive behavioral plan.