System of positive rewards to reduce student discipline takes off in California [edsource.org]

Jody, I agree. In my reporting, the schools that integrate trauma-informed and resilience-building practices based on ACEs science (which means that relationships are at the core of this approach...relationships between student and teacher, student and student, teacher and teacher, teacher and principal, principal and staff, etc., etc., etc), make huge progress. They see 90% drop in suspensions, expulsions eliminated, kids' grades and test scores increasing, truancy dropping, etc. Other schools that use only the PBIS system of rewards get partway there, and often backslide. Also, for many schools, the primary/secondary/tertiary rations are nowhere near close to the PBIS formula.

We post stories like this to show what current thinking is in many schools and school systems, and how far we have yet to go.

It's at the center of our Montana Behavior Initiative as well. And struggling in Indian country for the very reason that positive behavior rewards are not relationship based. Of course it can work for a while, like it does with horses and dogs for their life span.  But we don't grow up wanting to be animals, normally.  In 1973 the school board chairman at the Indian school where I worked said he wanted teachers to stop treating the Indian children like dogs. Turns out he meant no more jelly bean jars on teachers desks for incentives.  Back then it took me decades to catch on.  Now folks like Bruce Perry and Ross Greene and others are telling us why. It's the human neurobiology of learning. California ed dept. needs to listen to its scientists and its indigenous elders.

Wow.  Underneath it all, I don't believe these contingent responses are trauma informed.

And it comes from my deep belief that what underlies our resiliency is not "rewards" but "relationships" and there is a lot of data to back that up.  I recommend Daniel Pink's book, Drive for some data on contingent responses, as well as the work of Stuart Ablon and Bruce Perry. 

Beware of what appears to work short term.