Students at Meridian Middle School are working together to create a welcoming and effective learning environment through a behavior management system guided by the new Meridian Mindset.
Upon being hired last year, Assistant Principal Robert Kratzig reviewed the current behavior expectations at Meridian Middle School. He saw an opportunity to improve the expectations by framing them with positive language. For example, instead of “Don’t be late to class,” the expectation is now “Arrive on time to class.”
“These were rules, not expectations,” Kratzig said. “Positive framing helps students focus on what they are supposed to do, and not what they are prohibited from doing.”
Despite this change, schools – including those in Meridian – are still seeing ramifications from the extended closures due to the pandemic. One of the most visible is the increase in behavior referrals, which are written when a student behaves in a way that is disruptive to learning.
Assistant principals at each school worked together to identify what expectations and characteristics the school community wanted for its students. Last spring, staff, families, students and the community weighed in. Based on feedback, the four traits that resonated were caring, courageous, trustworthy and open-minded. These became the new Meridian Mindset.
One of the main goals this year at MMS was to use the newly developed Meridian Mindset to rebuild the collective spirit of students working together to create the school they want to attend. Each grade level at the school has a goal for the number of referrals they are not to exceed each week. If the grade level meets their goal, they are rewarded. The rewards grow with each successful week and have been set based on student input. If the grade meets their goal every week of a month, they get to participate in the largest prize – a staff versus student game or an activity period.
Additionally, students are being celebrated for exemplifying the Meridian Mindset traits individually as well. Staff who catch a student demonstrating one of the traits, can give the student a Meridian Mindset award card. The staff member shares with the student why they are being recognized, and the student can then turn the card in at the school office, where they are given a prize. The awards are also read during the morning announcements and then posted on a board for everyone to see.
Beginning this year there are also awards for Students of the Quarter. These students are nominated by staff if they represented all of the Meridian Mindset traits during the quarter.
“We did end of the year awards last year and students were so supportive of each other that we wondered why we didn’t do these recognitions more often. It was a great opportunity to celebrate our students,” Kratzig said.
In addition to these positive recognitions, a team of staff from each grade and program meets monthly and discusses what behavior expectations they want to focus on. Together they create lessons to be shared with students.
In September, Kratzig said there was a high number of vandalism reports in the bathrooms. The behavior team developed a homeroom lesson for October that refreshed behavior expectations. The lesson included information about custodial staff, who they are and what they do. The lesson concluded with a classroom discussion of how students could connect the Meridian Mindset to how they can support the custodians. As a result, bathroom behavior expectations improved and there were far fewer reports of vandalism. Kratzig said that humanizing staff allowed students to connect that vandalism in the bathroom directly impacted a member of the school community.
Kratzig shared that he has loved the ownership that students have taken for the mindset.
“Kids come up to me almost daily to ask how their grade is doing, if they’re meeting their goals, and what they can do to help support,” Kratzig said. “It has really reframed our conversations around behavior toward a collective effort.”