Supporting Constructive Student Behaviors in Elementary School

When I arrived as the new principal of my fourth and final K–6 principalship, I found an office full of students referred to me for misbehavior and fights that had occurred on our playground.

While previous principals had dealt with these issues in their own ways, I was determined to change things. I believed that most low-level types of behavioral infractions from the playground or the cafeteria could be managed by reducing the frequency of actions by repeat offenders and referrals for what I considered issues where staff might have intervened.

Addressing the issue

I spent the first few weeks of the school year gathering data and talking with staff about their perspectives regarding playground supervision. I noticed that depending on who was on supervisory duty, patterns developed.

Some days, there would be an office full of students for me to see, compared with other days when there were relatively few. My assessment led me to the realization that we had a systems problem, not a kid problem. So, I began working with my staff to discover ways we could improve the culture and reduce low-level office referrals.

I learned that many referrals originated from the area where fifth-grade students, particularly boys, played basketball. As I talked with the students who were referred for fighting, investigated further, and spent time observing the playground, I discovered that what was being referred to me also occurred when kids gathered on the playground on weekends. The students told me that on those days, they solved their skirmishes and conflicts themselves.

I observed that when the games became tense, and elbowing became frequent, often one student would get knocked to the ground, they would get back up swinging, and a push and shove match would break out. Since they were young kids, tears often resulted. Then, someone would find the duty teacher to stop things from getting worse.

During my 20 years in the principalship, I saw kids being much the same. They displayed the behaviors that they were taught and/or that were tolerated by adults. And I strongly believe that to still be true. Too much focus has been on reacting to inappropriate behaviors rather than preventing them from developing.

Dan Heath, in his book Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, illustrates that point with this analogy, which I’ve paraphrased here: If you were an adult charged with supervising students riding inner tubes down a river and saw them capsizing in an area with rapids and jagged rocks (with potential for drowning), what would you do? Would you just pull kids from the dangerous spot after they capsized or go upstream and stop the kids from getting in their inner tubes?

Similarly to the above example, the staff had become blind to the playground problem. And secondly, there wasn’t enough ownership for the level of supervision that many of them were providing.

Empowering Staff to Handle Common Behavior Issues

What can you do if you’re a school leader struggling with an issue like mine? Here’s what I did.

1. Observe. To solve the problems being referred from the playground, I spent time on the playground.
2. Gather data. I kept records of the playground referrals and noticed the trend that most were incidents that might have been stopped before they escalated.
3. Identify the root of the problem. I realized that my staff, collectively, were performing their supervisory duties in ways they had become accustomed to, what Heath describes as tunnel vision, which leads to a systems problem.
4. Clarify expectations for the adults. It was important to get the early adopters among the building leaders, the go-to individuals who implement change, to understand the importance of empowering staff to responsibly deal with low-level incidents of behavior. I began guiding my staff to look for ways to prevent rather than react to problems. Many of my veterans were very accountable, but new staff needed opportunities to discover what they needed to know and be able to do.
5. Hold staff accountable. As our discussions and training evolved, especially during staff meetings, it was important to report progress and maintain accountability. When staff members themselves began to hold each other accountable, I knew we had turned the corner.

Gradually, fewer and fewer students were sent to my office. Eventually, weeks would pass without an office referral. My staff grew professionally and learned effective ways of identifying triggers that led to outbursts and preventing them from developing.

I later wrote a guide for elementary principals with a collection of ideas, strategies, and advice intended to provide a vision and road map of how adults in schools (and also in after-school programs) can structure the learning environment to create cohesive plans for student management, order, and consistency. The key to success, seen time and time again by those who use it, comes from analyzing, discussing, and strengthening classroom and building-wide structures.;

Paraphrasing again from Heath’s book, and mine, you have to pinpoint your blind spots by identifying how behavioral problems originate and why. Don’t assume that you just know what they are. As you discuss your existing structures, you may realize that the current plan of supervision of students is ineffective, unjust, outdated, or not aligned throughout your entire building.

Kids need rules. They need boundaries and limits. They thrive when they respect and trust the adults responsible for their care. As professionals, we owe it to them to provide the very best learning environment. And a structured environment is good for adults, too.