As Oak Hill Middle School faculty and staff approach 2009, they are looking to lead off on the most positive footing possible.

Baldwin County Schools’ Oak Hill Middle and Baldwin High School are rolling out a new program to change students’ behavior for the better by rewarding them when they do good, instead of focusing efforts on punishing students when they do bad.

Oak Hill teachers, faculty and staff gathered Tuesday, the day before the new semester begins, to learn about the Positive Behavior Support program that will teach students to Be Respectful, Be Responsible and Be Prepared to achieve positive behavior change throughout middle and high school.

“What we’ve been doing hasn’t been working,” said Vivian Jones during the presentation. “If it was working, we wouldn’t need to suspend people. This is a new year with new offerings and a new mindset.”

Positive Behavior Support attempts to reinforce positive behavior by restructuring faculty and staff interaction with students to reinforce good behavior instead of using valuable class time punishing bad behavior.

Through Positive Behavior Support, school personnel will communicate their expectations for positive behavior and model that behavior to students. Once positive behavior is understood as an agreement among faculty, staff and the students, faculty and staff will begin rewarding positive behavior through incentivization.

“We want good behavior to be rewarded, so that we can bring bad behavior over to good,” Oak Hill teacher Chuck Claxton said. “If I see people being rewarded for doing good, I’m going to want to be rewarded, too.”

Oak Hill faculty and staff will reward behavior that meets and exceeds that which was agreed upon through receipt of Brave Bucks to students. Students will then be able to accumulate and exchange those Brave Bucks for rewards such as a meal at participating restaurants, gift certificates to local businesses or invitations to different events.

To help Oak Hill faculty and staff incentivize good behavior, many local businesses have donated money, products and services to provide tangible rewards for positive behavior.

Oak Hill volunteer Georgia Seabrook went around the community to create a network of supporters who want to see Baldwin students gain the behavioral skills they need to succeed in the classroom and the real world.

Seabrook invited businesses including Light Force Family Chiropractic, the Quay Fuller ReMax team, Craig Massee Insurance, Sunflower Maids, dentist Dr. Roy Lehrman, Starbucks, PoBoy’s Restaurant, Elite School of Gymnastics, Goodie Gallery, Olive Forge Herbs, Terry’s Auto Clinic, 110 Chops, Dax’s Upscale Barber Shop, Kuroshika Japanese Restaurant, Grant’s Jewelers, Advanced Cosmetic & Plastic Surgery, Chick-fil-A, Office Max, Blockbuster, Chamber’s Cleaners, Golden Corral, Applebee’s and Dairy Queen to become an integral part of the PBS program.

“The people out there care about you all for the way that you care about their children,” Seabrook said about local businesses’ generosity toward this new program for improving Baldwin schools.

In all, Baldwin businesses provided about $6,000 in incentives toward the Positive Behavior Support program.

Oak Hill Middle Principal Dr. Linda Ramsey said that faculty and staff are rolling out the program this year so that students throughout Oak Hill will be able to take the program with them into the next school year when the school system hopes to really see the positive behavior take effect.

“We wanted to make sure that the children are exposed to the program now, so that next year we can really implement it,” Ramsey said.