Proud PBIS Principal

The following is a short note that I shared with the staff at Wolcott Elementary School. 

I am so proud to be the principal of Wolcott Elementary School.  

It is clear to me that in the last year or so, we have come together to make our school better for those students who struggle the most.  

At the PBIS Leadership Forum, on Friday, I was able to share all of the work that you have done these last couple of years. It is a story of a staff that has made many systematic shifts at the universal level and beyond. More importantly, ours is a story of a staff whose thinking about struggling kids is changing in fantastic ways. I rarely hear complaints about behavior anymore; instead, I hear questions about why the behavior exists, and I hear adults reflecting on how they can do something different to meet the students’ needs. I’ve repeated several times in the last week the comment that came my way last year from an anonymous teacher: it seems like we only focus on behavior at WES. I now respond to that: we needed to, and it worked. 

Now, we still spend time on behavior, but it is not our main focus. I am proud that we are once again in a place to focus on things like reading, writing, and math. 

I am proud to be the principal of Wolcott Elementary School.

Note: please see the brief slide deck from a brief presentation at the Vermont PBIS Leadership Forum.