School Initiatives

Professional Learning Communities (PLC's):
When the school has a late start every Thursday morning, teachers are meeting in PLC groupings.  The overall goal of PLCs is to improve student achievement through teacher collaboration.  Teachers come together to use data gathered in their classrooms to improve classroom practice.  PLCs seek to answer these fundamental questions:  what do students know?  how do we know that they know?  what do we do when they don't know?  what do we do when they DO know?

Read an article by Richard DuFour, originator of the PLC movement.

Positive Behavior Systems (PBS):
Just as PLCs look to improve student academics, PBS seeks to improve student behavior with an emphasis on recognition and acknowledgement of positive student behaviors.  Similar to the PLC process, PBS seeks to understand these issues:  how do we want students to behave?  how do we know if they are behaving in this way?  what do we do when they don't behave appropriately?  what do we do when they DO behave appropriately?  The PBS initiative at RB is in its preliminary planning year.

RB PBS Newsletter

Character Counts!:
RBHS has been a member of Character Counts! since 2010.  Character Counts! is the biggest character education program in the nation.  Through it, RB seeks to improve school culture by focusing on six behavioral pillars:  trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.

Visit the official link.
Visit the RB Character Counts! webpage.

Why Try?:
Why Try? is a program designed to provide simple, hands-on solutions to aid with drop out prevention, violence prevention, drug and alcohol prevention, truancy reduction, failure reducation, and anti-bullying efforts.

Visit the official link.

Green Goals:
According to RB's District Goals, the schools has committed to the goal of improving the district's environmental health through green goals.

Eco-Schools:
RB is a member of Eco-Schools.  Eco-Schools is a voluntary program adopted by schools worldwide in order to imrpove their environmental health.  The focus on Eco-Schools is to build student and community involvement in tackling environmental issues within the school building.

Visit the official link.

Rooftop Garden:
RB is in the process of designing and constructing a rooftop garden through the volunteer efforts of dedicated staff members.  At this point, the school has secured initial grant money for the garden and is in the planning stages of the project.  The eventual hope is to have a beautiful and functional space atop the school that can be integrated into student learning and cafeteria offerings.

Executive Functioning (EF):
Executive Functioning refers to a human being's ability to stay organized, manage their time, and problem solve.  RBHS has been working with Rush NeuroBehavioral Center and Dr. Georgia Bozeday to implement an Executive Functioning plan with all freshmen.  Key components of the plan include student use of daily planners, color-coded folders and notebooks, regular daily agendas in classrooms, and more.

Executive Functioning Website

Watch part of a lecture on Executive Functioning by Dr. Bozeday on YouTube.

Service Learning:
RBHS has a strong emphasis on service learning.  Organizations like Student Services, the Association of Students for Tolerance, Eco Club and others perform yearlong services projects that include neighborhood cleanup, wilderness restoration, trips to a local soup kitchen, and visits with seniors at the British Home.

Learn more about RB's Month of Service in October.