Disciplinary actions by staff in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District have continued to decline this year.
Superintendent Sean Dusek said there are a couple of factors: the first, in elementary schools mainly, are Positive Behavior Intervention Supports or PBiS.
Dusek: “The whole base of that is a goal of having four positive interactions with a student for every negative interaction, so it’s a four to one ratio and I think our staff and students far exceed that and what we’ve seen at our elementary schools, because that’s primarily where it’s been implemented, is a very big decrease in the number of discipline referrals at those particular schools.”
The district has also seen a 50% decrease in disciplinary actions for freshmen at Soldotna Prep compared to the freshmen classes at Soldotna High and Skyview the year before.
Dusek: “Which is significant obviously, and a lot of that is attributed to that they’re in small groups, they have a little bit more personalized attention that’s been able to be given to them and because they are in their own group, they rely upon each other as peers to help each other and so they get to know each other even better and the philosophy of that school is to promote respect between peers and between adults and students.”
Dusek said the district will go through another trial next year as they see how the area’s freshmen are integrated into high school after being separated.