Five schools in Beaufort County were designated as North Carolina PBIS Green Ribbon Schools for 2016-17.

Eastern Elementary, John Cotten Tayloe, Chocowinity Primary, John Small Elementary and P.S. Jones Middle schools were named for their work in promoting PBIS, which is an acronym for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports.

The following are criteria for Green Ribbon Schools:

• An active administration
• PBIS team in place
• PBIS team meets monthly (minimum of nine times a year)
• PBIS completed Module I training
• Data submitted in the Discipline Data Summary Spreadsheet
• Tiered Fidelity Inventory completed
• Scored at least 80 percent on School-Wide Evaluation Tool

PBIS is a system encouraged statewide and focuses on rewarding positive behavior in students.

Alicia Vosburgh, principal at Chocowinity Primary School, said the school implemented PBIS last year with its four houses: Isibindi, the house of courage; Amistad, the house of friendship; Revêur, the house of dreamers; and Altruismo, the house of givers.

Every student and staff member is part of a designated house, and students who earn enough points for positive behavior will be able to attend assemblies and other school activities with their house, Vosburgh said.

“This has really formed strong bonds among different grade levels and students with teachers that they may not encounter until later in their career with us,” Vosburgh said. “We created a matrix of expectations that are learned, and our students display expected behaviors with automaticity. The key to this is modeling over and over, and having those expectations in place 100 percent of the time.”

Vosburgh said the Chocowinity Primary staff has seen a decrease in office referrals and an improvement in the overall environment of the school since implementing PBIS.

“It provides an opportunity for students to work together, encouraging and uplifting each other while earning rewards. It has helped shape our school culture,” Reading Recovery teacher Lauren Johnson said.

Chocowinity Primary’s PBIS team is comprised of teachers from each grade level and special areas of study, as well as school administrators, according to Vosburgh.

“Leslea Jones, our school counselor, is our chairperson and has done a fabulous job keeping us on track for success. We met frequently to establish how we would use positive reinforcement and combine it with a whole school community,” she said.

Beaufort County’s five Green Ribbon Schools will be recognized at a conference Nov. 14.

“We had several schools who were very close to recognition. We look forward to having more schools recognized for the 2017-18 school year,” reads a report from Superintendent Dr. Don Phipps.