GLENDALE, Ariz. — A little understanding can go a long way. If you don’t believe it, just ask the students and staff at Don Mensendick school.
After discipline referrals for such things as defiance, disrespect and non-compliance toward authority began to notch up, Principal Jeff Vilardi and Assistant Principal Dr. Seu Hee Kim begin to look for ways to train everyone at Mensendick — including the students — on how to build healthy relationships and empower students to self-correct. They found a good part of that solution through the Capturing Kids’ Hearts (CKH) process program that started on the campus this year.
Before school began, the Mensendick staff took part in a three-day training that allowed administrators, teachers and support staff to build more positive, productive and trusting relationships with each other, and then to use what they learned to improve their relationships with students. In addition, staff learned how to create safer and more effective environments for students and techniques for dealing with behavioral and disrespect issues. The end goal is to put in place processes that will lead to greater performance at Mensendick by both students and staff.
“We hope CKH will help students, staff and parents to better understand one another and to create an environment where mistakes don’t have to be punitively handled every single time,” said Vilardi. “Our goal is to decrease the number of referrals on our campus by 25 percent and raise our student achievement by 10 percent or more in reading, math and science.”
Vilardi added that the school’s staff has been using effective de-escalation strategies, shaking every students’ hand and abiding by social contracts in every Mensendick classroom.
“We have seen a tremendous difference in just the first two weeks of school,” Vilardi said. “Students are seeking out the staff, just to say hello and shake hands. Staff are treating students with more respect and patience, and this has lead students to open up and be more transparent about what the cause of some of their behaviors are. You can now walk into any classroom on campus and have a student greet you at the door, welcome you to his or her classroom and invite you to read and sign their social contract. And they’ll also let you know exactly what they’re currently working on in class.”
And the students just might capture your heart in the process.
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