The Saugus Union School District governing board at Tuesday’s meeting authorized the hiring of Conscious Discipline for a one-day workshop with the members of the district’s behavior council and site administrators to review “brain-based behavior strategies.”
Conscious Discipline is a social-emotional learning program designed to help adults and children develop self-regulation, empathy, and positive relationships by focusing on brain-based understandings of behavior and promoting a safe, connected, and problem-solving environment, according to its website.
This item was a part of the consent calendar. Unless a board member has a question concerning a particular item on the consent calendar and asks that it be withdrawn from it, the board approves the items all at one time.
Board member Anna Griese pulled the item from the consent calendar for discussion before it was voted on. Board member Christopher Trunkey made a motion to approve Conscious Discipline, and board member Matt Watson seconded the motion.
Superintendent Colleen Hawkins said that when the behavior council meets, they determine what they are going to talk about and for their next meeting on April 15 the members decided they wanted to talk about “big behaviors,” and they asked to have training about how to handle these behaviors.
“The behavior council had requested that our next workshop be about big behaviors and dealing with how you handle those in the classroom. Also defining them and working with strategies for a general education teacher to address it,” said Hawkins.
Hawkins added that, while at a behavior conference she attended, Conscious Discipline had a workshop she went to and she had the opportunity to schedule them to come provide training for the teachers, so she decided to book them.
She said a lot of the material that was covered at the conference included things teachers have asked for, talked with her about, and things the Saugus Teachers Association has shared with her.
“It seems as though this might be a missing piece for us as a district when teachers are regularly asking for training,” said Hawkins.
She added that it would be in the greatest interests of the district to provide teachers the opportunity to learn the information from the source, so when the behavior council makes their recommendations, they are making informed decisions.
For this training, Hawkins specified it would only be given to the members of the behavior council.
Watson said he was excited to hear the response from the behavior council and he was familiar with the philosophy behind Conscious Discipline, and he was fond of it.
“I think it addresses human development in a very developmentally appropriate way that places accountability for individual’s actions back in their own hands and I’ve seen it work extremely well but I’ve also seen it work very poorly in my case,” said Watson. “I give you kudos for moving quickly on this.”
Griese said she pulled the item off the consent calendar because she did not agree with how the process was handled and wanted to see the behavior council more involved in the decision and that there should be classified employees added to the council.
Hawkins said this training was sought after the behavior council asked for it, and instead of having a staff member carry out the training, outside professionals are being asked to do the training.
“I think there is value in bringing people in form the outside who have a different perspective,” said board President Patti Garibay. “For the most part they’re just bringing in a new tool. I think that’s important. I think that adds value.”
The motion passed with a 4-1 vote. Griese voted against the motion.
