Hear them ROAR
Courtesy photo Borah Elementary counselor Adam Foote helps students exchange Borah bucks — “money” the kids earned for exhibiting positive behaviors in school — for prizes at a school store.
COEUR d’ALENE — Nadia Seifert, 7, noticed grains of sand had spilled onto a table in her school counselor’s office at Borah Elementary School. Without being asked, she began clearing the sand from the table into her hand and put it back in the box it came from. This was not her mess to clean, but the second-grader took the initiative to do so anyway.
Before Borah’s implementation of Positive Behavior Incentives and Supports (PBIS), a program established by the United States Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs, responsible students like Nadia were few and far between, according to Adam Foote, Borah Elementary’s school counselor.
“Four years ago, when I first started my first year ... as a team, as a school, we decided, ‘Hey, we want to forge forward and make a change.’ Our school, Borah, when I first started four years ago, we were really struggling,” Foote said.
Foote said he’s seen changes in the school’s culture since the program’s beginning, three years ago.
“We decided to go into the PBIS program in order to try and improve the school, and it has made huge improvements to the school,” Foote said.
To quantify this, Foote kept track of the average number of disciplinary referrals per day throughout the school year. If students aren’t written up for two weeks, they’re considered, “self-managers.” At the start of the program, only 30 to 40 percent of students were self-managing. After three years, 90 percent of students are self-managers.
The school motivates students to behave like Nadia by providing incentives like “Borah Bucks.” Students can use Borah Bucks to buy toys like Barbie dolls and Play-Doh at the school store on Fridays. The school keeps its store stocked through grants and donations from local businesses like Grocery Outlet and Figpickels Toy Emporium. Most recently, Borah received a $500 grant from the ShopKo Foundation to buy inventory for its school store.
Students earn Borah Bucks by exemplifying model behavior — being Respectful, On task always, Always safe, and Responsible, aka “ROAR”-ing.
Borah’s student-to-faculty ratio is 19 to one and because of this, Borah is always in need of volunteers to help run the school store. Anyone can volunteer by calling Borah Elementary at (208) 664-5844.