Pleasant Valley program aims to improve discipline

Pleasant Valley School District is moving forward with a program aimed at boosting student and family engagement, and reducing discipline referrals.

The school board voted 5-4 last week to enter into a contract with Franklin Covey to adopt the Leader in Me program at Pleasant Valley Intermediate School, pending review of the contract by the board’s attorney. The one-year contract totals $39,331.84.

For the 2019-20 school year, teachers at Pleasant Valley Intermediate School will receive training on how to start using the program with their students. They hope to roll it out to students the following year.

Pleasant Valley Intermediate School Principal Todd Breiner told the school board that he has strived to improve the culture and climate at PVI. He said Leader in Me could be a way to further reduce the number of discipline referrals and improve attendance.

“It’s a proven program, it’s evidence based. It’s a whole school transformation program, school improvement program, that the focus on it is really empowering students,” Breiner said.

Breiner and other PVI faculty members visited two schools which currently use Leader in Me. He said those schools had something he wanted for PVI, a feeling that every student feels like they belong, and they have the ability to be a leader.

“We want to develop collaborative relationships, we want to develop shared experiences, student ownership in their learning,” Breiner said.

Following the school visits, he polled the faculty, and two-thirds said they were in favor of adopting Leader in Me versus creating their own program.

Superintendent David Piperato said he has experience using the program, and proposed it to the previous principal at PVI as well. Piperato said when he joined the district, he heard from PVI staff that they felt like they did not fit in, prompting one staff member to call them the “island of misfit toys.”

He wanted to give the school a program that would make them a leader and an example to other schools in the district.

Piperato said Leader in Me will provide students the tools to achieve, even if they come from a low-income background.

“It’s a tried and true program, if you did your research and I know many of you do, it’s being used in many school districts — Allentown, Easton, Bethlehem, and I believe our students truly deserve this,” Piperato said.

Some school board members felt that they needed more time to consider the contract, because they had just received it four days beforehand.

The board members who voted against the contract were Laura Jecker, Len Peeters, Donna Yozwiak and Delbert Zacharias.

Yozwiak said she wanted to see research showing that the program works. She was also concerned about the cost of training involved with the program.

Peeters and Jecker both asked about how much the program will cost in future years.

Jecker said she heard from a district which stopped using Leader in Me after five years in the program. She said it wasn’t what they expected and it was extremely expensive.

She said under previous administrations the board rushed to adopt programs which turned out to be ineffective.

Piperato said that the contract for 2019-20 is $39,000 and the district’s budget is $101 million. He said if the board doesn’t like what they’re seeing from Leader in Me, they can vote against funding it in the future.

But he urged them to vote in favor of the program last week.

Board member Ken Cocuzzo said the program sounds like it fits with the district’s goal of being a 21st century school district. He said it was good that his fellow board members wanted more information, but they should also trust the administrators.