Student team promotes positive change at middle school

A student-led team is helping lead the movement to make Medical Lake Middle School a better place.

Earlier this year, Medical Lake became the latest school district to implement the PBIS (positive behavior intervention support) program. During a presentation to the school board, Josh Edmondson, a behavior specialist for the district, explained that the middle school wanted students to learn how to do handle situations in a positive manner. They also wanted to focus on students who are showing good behavior.

“Many times teachers focus on the bad behavior or the loud behavior that distracts the classroom,” Edmonson said. “As staff, we asked ourselves ‘what are we doing to recognize and encourage students who show good behavior. We’re trying to be more proactive in doing that.”

While staff implemented some activities to help promote PBIS, including having karaoke during the lunch hour and bringing in Spokane County Sheriff’s Deputy David Morris to speak to the school about bullying, they also established a student-led team — comprised of Sierra Brock, Chloe Hanson, Erika Uribes and Justin Warnick — to get students excited about the program and help create a safe environment. All four students were selected because of a school survey.

“On the survey it asked ‘If you were being bullied, who would you talk to?’ Uribes said. “Our four names came up the most.”

The students created posters with positive messages and spread them around school. They also held a kickoff assembly involving students from the high school’s leadership class, who presented a skit about school behavior.

The committee also worked on videos. One of them showed a student – played by Warnick – starting his morning before heading to school where he encountered different situations such as bullying and harassment, and positive methods he used to resolve them.

“In that video, we wanted to show students that their lives look similar to their classmates,” Edmondson said.

Edmondson also praised the team’s efforts in wanting to change the culture of the school.

“We’ve given them the tools and the microphones to let their voices be heard,” Edmonson said. “We want this focus on positive behavior to spread outside of the school and it starts with these guys.”

The team will promote PBIS with the incoming sixth-grade class. Hanson said one of the team’s goals for next year is to keep students from forming groups that exclude classmates.

“We want to keep students from making judgements and encourage them to include others,” Hanson said.

The team also shares Edmonson’s hopes of spreading PBIS into their homes and the community.

“If you show a positive attitude, people will do positive,” Uribes said. “One person’s positive attitude can impact thousands.”

Al Stover can be reached at al@cheneyfreepress.com.