Behavior Referrals

Challenging Behavior Referral Process


Our young people have much to learn in terms of content area knowledge and skills during their time with us. Additionally, students have many lessons ahead in the areas of collaboration, cooperation, and working productively as a member of our school community. At the root, our behavioral expectations and challenging behavior referral process have the scope of all these lessons in mind. We strive to support students throughout all of these lessons as they learn to comply with our school’s behavior expectations. All successful schools develop a system of expectations and consequences as a natural part of keeping order within an organization where many people come together to work under one roof.


Behavioral expectations help learners develop valuable study skills and habits of mind that will assist them in their formal schooling today and into the future. It is important to involve them in the development of the school wide and classroom expectations that address all the settings in the school and in the classroom. Involving students in the development of expectations increases their commitment to the expectations and by default, increases their compliance with them. We will begin each new school year with a review and opportunity to tweak our HGS School-wide Behavior Expectations.


Beyond the school-wide expectations, all teachers must work with students in their classrooms to develop behavioral expectations and management incentives that align with our school-wide expectations, but which also fit for the content area and the developmental level of kids at each grade.


For our students to successfully learn and comply with routines, protocols, and rules in school, we have a great deal of teaching to do! Some of our students come to us with the ability to understand and execute appropriate behavioral skills in our different school settings. Many of our students, however, do not yet have these skills and must learn them. To be successful with behaviors, they need regular practice and a feedback loop from teachers that helps them on their journey to mastery. As we know, students learn in different ways and at different rates and so some learners will take extra time to learn these behaviors and this is absolutely ok, we are here to support them in these lessons that are so important to success in life.


When it comes to behavior, mistakes and consequences can range from minor to major. When students make mistakes that fall short of our HGS school-wide and classroom behavior expectations, they can expect feedback from us, and also corrective natural consequences. When students receive corrective feedback on minor mistakes over time and they are still not able to correct their behavior, more targeted interventions are often necessary to support them in their learning.


Our “Challenging Behavior Referral (CBR)” process provides documentation for minor and major student behavior and consequences. It also serves as documentation when more intense support is needed for students who are struggling with challenging behavior and this is managed through our weekly student data meetings.


The CBR paperwork will not be sent home, but teachers are responsible for calling parents to inform them of a student’s challenging behavior as soon as possible after the behavior occurs.