Many schools find that administration of PBIS can be an inexact science, particularly if they are attempting to track behavior by hand. Paper tokens and tickets, spreadsheets, and manual accounting can be challenging to your PBIS program. Accuracy is very important in PBIS; schools use program data to adjust expectations as the year progresses. At the heart of accuracy is the token economy – the awarding and tracking of tickets, paws, and bucks. Going paperless with your token economy will help your PBIS program become more effective.
10 Reasons a Paperless Token Economy is Better
1) Better use of parent volunteer skills and time
How much of your parent volunteer time is spent cutting out paper tokens? Eliminating this task allows your volunteers to be helpful in other areas.
2) Reduced paper usage
Paper can be a significant expense in most school budgets, and many schools use part of their paper allotment to print and create tokens. How much would your school save if you eliminated paper tokens? Do you keep track of points on printed spreadsheets? Going paperless with your token economy will help to eliminate part of your paper expense.
3) No lost or damaged tokens
It’s easy for students to misplace paper tokens. Left in the bottom of a backpack or laundered in a pants pocket, paper tokens are fragile. A student who has lost tokens can’t take advantage of points earned.
4) Easier to recognize students in any situation
Handing out tokens in the classroom is pretty straightforward – but what about in the cafeteria, on the playground, the school bus, or on a field trip? Teachers don’t always have a supply of tokens at hand to reward positive behavior. A paperless system allows students to receive points wherever they may be. The PBIS Rewards smartphone App gives all staff members this portability to recognize any student, anywhere.
5) More accurate accounting of points earned
When you track points by hand, it’s easy to lose count of points earned and redeemed. Tracking points in a schoolwide PBIS program is easier using a paperless token economy. Using a centralized system means that every student can use every point they earn, no matter where they earned them.
6) Easy school store operation
Accurate point totals and an effortless way to redeem points make school store accounting a breeze. With a digital token economy, you can track inventory, assess item popularity, and make sure students maximize their points.
https://twitter.com/mtviewes/status/9584246558192394247) Better progress monitoring
The data you collect helps you to determine the effectiveness of your PBIS program. Tracking data by hand on spreadsheets can provide you with data, but often that data is incomplete. A paperless system tracks data points automatically, allowing better progress monitoring of your program.
8) Teaches money management
In today’s society, money management is largely digital. Employees receive pay through direct deposit and use debit cards to purchase items. A paperless token economy operates much in the same fashion, allowing your staff to teach modern money management skills.
9) Allows teachers to build relationships with students
PBIS helps to create positive teacher-student relationships by refocusing attention on good behavior. However, it’s not always easy or possible to award paper tokens outside the classroom. A paperless token economy extends your PBIS program to the playground, the cafeteria, or even on a field trip, allowing teachers to recognize good behavior wherever it takes place.
10) More time to teach
If you were to ask your staff to compile a wish list, many would ask for more time to teach. For educators dealing with poor behavior and disruption in the classroom, time is a precious commodity, indeed. PBIS helps to improve school culture by refocusing attention on positive behaviors, reducing classroom disruptions. Additionally, a paperless token economy allows staff members to award points on the fly, instead of stopping instructional time to hand out paper tokens.
Using PBIS Rewards for Your Paperless Token Economy
PBIS Rewards allows your school to administer a more effective and efficient PBIS program by eliminating paper tokens and tickets. Point totals are tracked within the system and the data generated allows you to examine:
- Office referrals
- Staff utilization
- Student progress
- School store inventory
- Schoolwide PBIS implementation
- … and more!
If your PBIS program is drowning you and your staff in paper, manual accounting in spreadsheets, and you’re not sure how effective it is, PBIS Rewards is the answer!
We offer live, online demos so you can experience how easy the software is to operate. Want to know more?
