'Capturing Kids' Hearts' has teachers on right track

If you have a child’s heart … you have a child’s mind.

This is the premise of a behavior program we have been implementing the last few years called, “Capturing Kids’ Hearts.” This research-based program provides the training and skills for social-emotional wellbeing, relationship-driven culture, and student connectedness.

Yucca Middle School is one of our sites that has been determined in efforts to implement this program with fidelity. The intricacies of the program are too complex to fully detail here, but extensive training has enabled Yucca’s teachers and students to fully embrace CKH.

According to Annetta Hadley and Bethanie Baker, Yucca’s principal and assistant principal, respectively, they’ve found the strategies an ideal solution for establishing and maintaining boundaries, while building and/or preserving relationships between students and adults. For example, at the classroom level, they use what is called the “Behave In/Behave Out” procedure for behavior management.

When a low-level classroom disruption occurs, the student gets three chances to correct the behavior following specific guidelines, each one with specific strategies. If this does not work, then a “Behavior Out” sheet is completed by the teacher, and the security staff member comes and escorts the student to the In-School-Solutions room, where the student will remain for a minimum of 30 minutes. The Solutions room staff member reviews the situation with the student and provides them with a “Reflection” sheet, which the student completes.

The student is then, at some point on the same day, escorted back to the classroom to resolve with the teacher, in a respectful - on both the part of the student and the teacher - manner.

If disruptive behaviors continue, more direct action is taken, following the specific guidelines of our District Discipline Matrix. If this seems like a lot of work … it is! However, there is great buy-in from both teachers and students because of the demonstrated efficacy. Students know the steps by heart and are not hesitant to chime in if one of the steps is out of order.

Principal Hadley emphasized, “We want to address the small things to provide every opportunity for students to regulate their own behavior. When discipline is a problem, learning is not taking place.”

Baker agreed wholeheartedly, adding, “We are preparing these students to move to the next level and want to ensure they’re the best they can be. There is a lot we cannot control, but the things we can control, we should; and we can control our responses with consistency and positive feedback in the way we address problem situations.”

Most importantly, Hadley and Baker both noted that they now have half the classroom disruptions compared to the last “normal” school year, 2018.

Sounds like they’re on the right track.

Cindy Kleyn-Kennedy is the Instructional Technology Coordinator for the Clovis Municipal Schools and can be reached at:

[email protected]