New school program rewards community, consideration

NORTH CANAAN — The idea behind a new behavioral training system at North Canaan Elementary School (NCES) is simple: Teach students how to be respectful, responsible and make informed choices regarding safety.

Staff at the school have undergone a year of training  and now, after only a couple of months in practice,  the Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support (PBIS) system seems to be bringing remarkable returns on the time investment.

PBIS is a federal program established by the Office of Special Education Programs. The agency describes it as a way to help students “self-regulate� their academic, social and personal behavior. It sounds almost too good to be true, but faculty at the school report that it’s working.

The system was instituted at Housatonic Valley Regional High School a year ago.

There is an 11-member PBIS team at North Canaan, made up of teachers, the school psychologist and counselor and a parent. They came to the Nov. 12 school board meeting to give a PowerPoint presentation. But more telling than the charts and graphs was their palpable excitement.

The overall atmosphere in the school has taken a dramatic turnaround. It’s not that there was mayhem before, but the program has created a whole new culture, team members said.

Students are less focused on themselves, as their eyes are opened to the impact each has on those around them, even in the smallest of ways.

It is eliminating the “group mentality� that often drives disrespectful behavior.

Principal Rosemary Keilty said that she not only has to speak with far fewer students in her office, but she will often be the recipient of random kindnesses, such as having a door held for her.

“The PBIS initiative is not about manners, such as saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ but I’m hearing a lot more of it,� Keilty said. “It’s making students more respectful and aware, so that they are using the manners they already have.�

PBIS is designed to make it very clear to students what behavior is expected of them in school — not just in the classroom, but on the playground, on the bus, in the cafeteria and even the bathrooms.

“Before, all they heard from us was ‘don’t, don’t, don’t.’ Now it’s ‘we expect ...’,� Keilty said. “In all the years I taught, we never told the kids how we expected them to act in places outside the classroom.

“Children need structure and constant reminding. With this, we are slowly changing the culture of the school.�

The staff expressed delight with the program.

“The students walk down the hall more in single file, rather than in big, noisy groups that block the hallways,� said teacher Eve Bouchard, who leads the team as a “coach� with teacher Melissa Bachetti.

“It’s a very positive and very data-driven approach,� she added. “It looks at where students are behaving properly and what expectations are being met.�

The initiative comes with its own language, of sorts. Phrases like “leave no trace,� have become oft-repeated reminders to be responsible.

An example would be leaving a classroom in good condition by pushing desk chairs in and picking up papers from the floor. The phrase helps students remember they are in a community setting.

Students receive recognition slips that say  thank you for exhibiting a specific behavior. The slips, which students are treating with respect, go into a weekly drawing for small prizes. The PBIS system recognizes that it could easily become all about the prizes, so they are limited to token items, such as a pencil, or quality-of-life rewards, such as having music played in the cafeteria.

A chart in the school lobby is tallying the number of recognition slips. Team members pay close attention to who is getting them, and who is not.

“After the first week, we made a list of kids who were not recognized. We are very cognitive of the need to recognize all the students. Just because they didn’t get a slip doesn’t mean they didn’t do things to deserve it. During the second week, we went out and easily found reasons to give those kids slips.�

The chart hit the 6,000 mark this week. The reward will be a schoolwide ice cream party.

The initiative recognizes the need for regular reminders and assessments of where problems begins. Even a week-long vacation break is followed by “re-training.� Bouchard said PBIS even looks at how students “flow� around the school, sort of a feng shui approach. Feng shui is a Chinese tradition and pays attention to how positive and negative energy flow through people and space.

School board members noted that PBIS seems to require a lot of time from the team.

“We are spending a lot of time now, but it will eventually run itself,� Bachetti said, adding emphatically that, “It’s worth it.�

Latest News

Father Joseph Kurnath

LAKEVILLE — Father Joseph G. M. Kurnath, retired priest of the Archdiocese of Hartford, passed away peacefully, at the age of 71, on Sunday, June 29, 2025.

Father Joe was born on May 21, 1954, in Waterbury, Connecticut. He attended kindergarten through high school in Bristol.

Keep ReadingShow less
Club baseball at Fuessenich Park

Travel league baseball came to Torrington Thursday, June 26, when the Berkshire Bears Select Team played the Connecticut Moose 18U squad. The Moose won 6-4 in a back-and-forth game. Two players on the Bears play varsity ball at Housatonic Valley Regional High School: shortstop Anthony Foley and first baseman Wes Allyn. Foley went 1-for-3 at bat with an RBI in the game at Fuessenich Park.

 

  Anthony Foley, rising senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, went 1-for-3 at bat for the Bears June 26.Photo by Riley Klein 

 
Siglio Press: Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature

Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.

Richard Kraft

Siglio Press is a small, independent publishing house based in Egremont, Massachusetts, known for producing “uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.” Founded and run by editor and publisher Lisa Pearson, Siglio has, since 2008, designed books that challenge conventions of both form and content.

A visit to Pearson’s airy studio suggests uncommon work, to be sure. Each of four very large tables were covered with what looked to be thousands of miniature squares of inkjet-printed, kaleidoscopically colored pieces of paper. Another table was covered with dozens of book/illustration-size, abstracted images of deer, made up of colored dots. For the enchanted and the mystified, Pearson kindly explained that these pieces were to be collaged together as artworks by the artist Richard Kraft (a frequent contributor to the Siglio Press and Pearson’s husband). The works would be accompanied by writings by two poets, Elizabeth Zuba and Monica Torre, in an as-yet-to-be-named book, inspired by a found copy of a worn French children’s book from the 1930s called “Robin de Bois” (Robin Hood).

Keep ReadingShow less
Cycling season: A roundup of our region’s rentals and where to ride them

Cyclists head south on the rail trail from Copake Falls.

Alec Linden

After a shaky start, summer has well and truly descended upon the Litchfield, Berkshire and Taconic hills, and there is no better way to get out and enjoy long-awaited good weather than on two wheels. Below, find a brief guide for those who feel the pull of the rail trail, but have yet to purchase their own ten-speed. Temporary rides are available in the tri-corner region, and their purveyors are eager to get residents of all ages, abilities and inclinations out into the open road (or bike path).

For those lucky enough to already possess their own bike, perhaps the routes described will inspire a new way to spend a Sunday afternoon. For more, visit lakevillejournal.com/tag/bike-route to check out two ride-guides from local cyclists that will appeal to enthusiasts of many levels looking for a varied trip through the region’s stunning summer scenery.

Keep ReadingShow less