Encouraging and rewarding students for positive behavior is the foundation of PBIS, and a successful initiative helps to create a positive school climate. But when positive behaviors learned at school aren’t reinforced at home, it can slow the progress of your in-school PBIS program.

If only there was a way to involve parents and guardians in your PBIS program…

Introducing the PBIS Rewards Family App

Imagine being able to extend positive behavior reinforcement beyond school grounds! With the PBIS Rewards Family App, you can do just that. As part of the PBIS Rewards suite of apps, the free PBIS Rewards Family App allows parents and guardians to view student point totals, number of referrals, items purchased with points, and upcoming events for which points can be used.

How Does It Work?

Once the parent or guardian downloads the app onto a smartphone, they can scan a QR code to activate a student in the app. This QR code is unique to each student and is provided to the parent via a letter from the school. The app confirms the QR code, allowing the parent to access to their student’s point totals and progress as the school year goes along. The parent or guardian can recognize and encourage positive behavior at home based on the information available in the app.

The PBIS Rewards Family App allows parents and guardians to track the progress and point totals of multiple students, even if they are attending different schools. Each school generates a unique QR code for each student, and once this code is scanned in the app, the parent or guardian can view the information for each child. The school can generate paper letters, emails, and/or text messages to connect parents and guardians with their students within the app.

What Families Can See and Do

The PBIS Rewards Family App only allows access to student information specific to the QR code scanned. This information includes:

• Communication Between School and Home
  • Two-way messaging within PBIS Rewards
  • Send attachments and photos
• Points balance & Details
  • view teacher comments for points awarded
• Referrals
  • both Major & Minor
• Check-In/Check-Out forms
  • view forms
  • verify forms
• Purchases made by their student(s)
• Upcoming events
• Contact information for all teachers so parents or guardians can contact staff directly from the app

The parent or guardian cannot alter any of this information in any way. It is purely a reporting mechanism. For students who have a CICO plan or receive referrals, push notifications can be turned on to keep parents or guardians updated in real time. Once connected to their student within the app, parents or guardians can generate an authorization code for their student to login to the Student App.

Inform Parents and Guardians with the PBIS Rewards Family App Support Video

A whiteboard-style video will help you to inform parents and guardians about PBIS, PBIS Rewards, and how your school is using them to build a positive school climate.

Check it out here: https://www.pbisrewards.com/about/parent-support-video/.

Improving School Climate with PBIS Rewards

Studies have shown that encouraging positive behavior improves school climate in ways that punishment of negative behavior cannot.  By extending this encouragement to the home setting and giving parents the opportunity to reinforce these behaviors, the overall school climate improves. What’s more, the Family App sends a strong message to parents that your school values their input. When educators and parents work together, both students and schools benefit.

Reaching Families That Don’t Speak English

In some school systems, students speak English while at school but another language while at home with family. PBIS Rewards offers parent letters in Spanish to accommodate those families for whom English fluency is problematic. It allows these families to become more comfortable with your PBIS program and helps to foster a deeper connection with the school.

PBIS programs are popular in educational settings for one important reason: they work. When educators focus their attention on positive behavior, students react favorably. The long-term result is improved behavior across the entire student population, and improved school climate for all. Giving parents an opportunity to be a part of this experience further strengthens your PBIS program.

Like the PBIS Rewards app, the Family App is available for both iPhone and Android phones. It’s easy to get started; you can generate the letters with unique QR codes right from your desktop system in the PBIS Rewards app. Parents can download the Family App from iTunes or Google Play.

Intrigued? Want to know more about PBIS Rewards?

Watch the Video!