Case Study: Durham Elementary International Baccalaureate World School reduces suspensions and improves academic performance with Kickboard

Durham Elementary reduces suspensions and improves academic performance by building relationships and creating a strong school culture

Durham Elementary International Baccalaureate World School, led by Principal Amy Poerschke, faced significant climate and culture challenges after 2015—an overemphasis on negative behavior and insufficient teacher support that threatened academic progress. To address this, the school adopted the Student Motivation System alongside the Kickboard school culture system, a configurable web-based platform and professional development resource, to align expectations and better support teachers and students.

Using Kickboard to track merits, positivity ratios, alerts and parent engagement, Durham implemented clear behavior expectations, daily merit accounting and targeted teacher supports. The results included fewer Tier 2–3 interventions, a drop in suspensions (by December 2016 only five in‑school and zero out‑of‑school suspensions versus roughly 15–20 and 5 the prior year), more time on task, increased parent involvement, and gains on Texas performance indexes (Index 1: 65→70; Index 2: 39→47; Index 3: 33→38; Index 4: 31→41).

Durham Elementary International Baccalaureate World School

Amy Poerschke

Principal