What Do You Think of ClassDojo, PBIS Rewards, and Behavior Points Systems?

What do you think about class dojo and systems like that that track either positive or negative or both types of points for behavior?

Last year, I was looking into PBIS Rewards and their system for giving out positive points and attaching prizes to that, and I had a lot of criticisms of that because that like the points and rewards thing was not part of my PBIS training.

And it seems like that's kind of gone awry in a lot of schools for just excessive focus on points and rewards and prizes and things rather than just on teaching expectations.

And I know probably even more schools use class dojo and use that to kind of keep an eye on behavior and track points.

And I used a similar system when I was a middle school teacher.

It wasn't my idea.

It was just like what my school used.

And I eventually ran the system called honor level.

Basically, it was a way of keeping track of infractions for kind of low-level behaviors.

And I had a podcast guest recently who talked about progressive discipline and using kind of a points-like or infraction system to have data, to have kind of visibility into maybe students who were struggling, but like in a minor way in every class or in multiple places, not big enough to generate an office referral.

So like, let's say you have a student who is tardy to several classes and is off task or disrespectful, but like nothing is big enough to really get this kid sent to the office or get them sent home.

Like, is it useful to have a way to keep track of that so that someone can help them, someone can intervene, someone can provide some support or just check in with the student.

And I like that argument.

I think it is helpful to have kind of an early warning system and to be able to be proactive and, but I'm not sure about the points idea.

And I'd love to know what you think about this.

I'm not sure I like, and I don't think I ever felt good about the infraction system where it's like, I'm going to write you a mini referral.

I'm going to write like a small piece of paper that documents something bad you did.

And I'm going to give you a warning first and I'm going to have you sign it when you actually earn one and I'm going to turn it in.

So my job in running the system was to actually type all those in because there were no apps or anything back then.

This is all on paper.

And like, I don't, I don't feel great about that looking back on it.

I don't, I don't love that system.

But I can see that it had some advantages in terms of, you know, kind of identifying who needed support.

One of the things I don't like about it is like it's always the same kids getting the infractions and the supports can kind of always be the same.

Like if you have somebody who's going through a hard time, it can help you identify them.

But for the most part, it's the same kids every time.

So it becomes this kind of predictable thing where it's like every week so-and-so is going to be tardy three times and every week so-and-so is going to mouth off in so-and-so's class.

I don't know.

What do you think about these systems?

Is it worth keeping track of low-level negative behaviors with some sort of infraction or point system?

Do you use class dojo in your school?

What do you think about it?

Do you like it?

Let me know.