Fix School Discipline Toolkit for Educators | Page 24

attendance, graduation, and college preparedness.
Initially, staff and faculty were resistant to the ideas
proposed by InnerCity Struggle but gradually came
to agree that Garfield needed to change. With the
great leadership of Principal Huerta, the school staff
worked with parents and community to develop a
plan to improve the school and that included the
small learning community model and meaningful
implementation of positive behavior interventions
and supports.

Principal Jose Huerta, Assistant Principal
Rose Anne Ruiz, former Dean of Students
Aurora Mellado, former Social Worker Gelber Orellano, PSW
When and how did you implement a
positive behavior intervention and support
model at Garfield?
Former Assistant Principal Ramiro Rubalcaba
(Rubalcaba): In 2007, LAUSD passed a policy
requiring PBIS as the alternatives to suspension and
expulsion framework. At that time, we had been
issuing over 600 suspensions per year. During the
spring of the 2008 – 2009 school year, Principal Jose
Huerta, selected me t o be assistant principal and
work with discipline, and I came back to Garfield
from other assignments. We were mandated to go
to training. We were hesitant at first but once we
got there and took the training, we saw that there
was really something to PBIS. Additionally, I took a
road trip around LAUSD and visited other schools

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How we can fix school discipline

implementing PBIS. We decided that we were going
to eliminate suspensions of all kinds for the rest of
that school year and explained to staff that we were
no longer going to suspend students. Instead, we
fully implemented School-Wide Positive Behavior
Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS).
In 2009-2010, we implemented a computer based
referral system. We became a data-centered
school. Teachers had been referring students for
insignificant things, and we couldn’t track all the
data: who sent which student for what? Many
times, students would just tear up the referral. We
trained the teachers during the summer of 2009 on
the online referral system and gave them a clear
understanding of what we would be doing with
the referrals and that we would be assisting the
students or staff who needed the most help. We put
a progressive discipline policy in writing. In this
policy, we made it clear that safety and discipline
were everyone’s responsibility. Before a teacher
could send a student to the office, there were a list
of interventions that needed to be completed. That
year, there were 150 suspensions for the entire 20092010 school year.
Additionally, we got students involved in
governance. We had them make motivational
posters about the school rules and present them at
assemblies.
Assistant Principal Rose Anne Ruiz (Ruiz): We
incorporated the three SWPBIS rules – Be Safe,
Responsible and Respectful - into our three Expected
Schoolwide Learning Results (ESLRs) that we had
always used: Persons of Character, Communicators,
and Critical Thinkers.

How has the climate of your school
changed since implementation?
Principal Jose Huerta (Huerta): Ten years ago,
this used to be a school where students would get
jumped into gangs in the restroom. We had a severe
gang problem, which was apparent from all of the
tagging (graffiti) on campus. There were also drug
problems on campus. It was a chaotic environment,
inside and out. We’ve come a very long way and
have really shifted the culture. Our main focus