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From left, SSES students Hunter, Ashlynn and Kiley discuss their favorite thing about school with Superintendent Mike Lamb at the SSISD board meeting Monday. At the end of the students’ Capturing Kids’ Hearts staff training presentation, Hunter asked Lamb if recess could be extended by 20 minutes. Lamb said Hunter would need to ask his principal, as she was the one in charge. Staff photo by Tammy Vinson
Sulphur Springs ISD
SSES students say their favorite thing about school is their teachers. And recess. But mostly teachers.
The reason for this may be a program in which Sulphur Springs ISD primary and elementary teachers participated prior to the start of school in August. Capturing Kids’ Hearts is a behavioral skills training program based on the premise “If you have a child’s heart, you have their mind.”
The program is based on creating relational connections between teachers and students to improve performance and behavior. According to The Flippen Group, which developed the program, “Kids want to be in classrooms where teachers know how to connect with them and make them feel valued.”
At just three weeks into the new school year, teachers and administrators are reporting very positive results, having implemented the training in the classrooms.
Whitney Vaughn and Megan Wiggins, who teach fourth and fifth grades, respectively, brought a few of their students from Sulphur Springs Elementary School to demonstrate some of their classroom practices which include positive greetings for every student first thing in the morning; sharing “good things,” which allows students and teachers to learn about each others’ lives outside the classroom and develop a better understanding of what’s important to each of them; and a social contract, created and agreed on by all the students, which lists desirable behaviors they will exhibit in class. Students are appointed to evaluate the class’s performance about once a week on behaviors such as talking.
“It’s to see if our class can be better over time,” a fourth grade student told the group.
“The students are encouraged to take ownership of their behavior,” Wiggins said. “We refer to the social contract all the time for positive reinforcement—maybe once in a while for negative.”
There are hand signals used to initiate or indicate different actions. There’s time out, which the students or the teacher can call if it’s necessary to regroup or if a student is talking or off-task. Students can also give each other a “check,” using a hand signal to head off unwanted behavior, such as talking, before the teacher gets involved.
“I really love that it builds community,” Wiggins said, “We’re getting to know each other. The students realize they have a lot of things in common at home—things they’re dealing with. [We’ve] built a family in the classroom, and you trust the family. It’s easier to share with your family. I think it brought us closer together.”