Pyramid Plus Certified Sites
Technical Assistance & Training
Pyramid Plus Certified Sites
The staff at Pyramid Plus are dedicated to program-wide implementation of high fidelity pyramid practices and have established a certification process for programs. This process offers intense support to programs to assist the roll out of high fidelity practices, capacity building and sustainability throughout programs and their communities. Pyramid Plus is pleased to announce four program sites for certification: Creative Options in Aurora, Fremont County Head Start in Canon City, Primetime Early Learning Center/Norwood Preschool in Norwood, and Bal Swan Children’s Center in Broomfield, as well as one community-wide site: the community of Pueblo. These candidate sites were selected based on their commitments to practicing inclusion and promoting social emotional development using the Pyramid Model throughout their programs. We are very excited to work with such high quality programs and look forward to providing classroom tours in the future.
Pyramid Plus Site News
Bal Swan Children's Center
Watch the videos below to learn how Bal Swan, a Pyramid Plus site in Broomfield, is implementing the Pyramid Plus approach in their school. To see more videos about Bal Swan, please visit the Bal Swan page on YouTube.
Director of Pyramid Plus Demonstration Site Named Qualistar’s Early Childhood Education Professional Award Recipient
ROBIN SNYDER has been teaching preschool for more than 10 years. She is currently the director and lead teacher of Norwood Preschool, which is one of five sites in the state to be certified as a demonstration site with Pyramid Plus. Robin recently received her certification as a Pyramid Plus Trainer as well. To this date, Robin has presented parent workshops in her community, region Pyramid overviews and has even presented at the national level (NTI: Addressing Challenging Behaviors and APBS Conferences).
One story about Robin stands out. Robin had a 4 year old student who was experiencing challenging behavior. The student's behavior was so extreme that the peers avoided interaction with her, often skirting around the outside of the classroom to avoid contact. Robin had a positive relationship with the family and was comfortable initiating a behavior support process for the student. She met with the family, early childhood specialist, and assistant teacher to begin the behavior support process. With technical assistance, a behavior support plan was written for the child with full family involvement, including an ongoing communication system with the family. Robin was able to modify the strategies to get more buy-in from the student by embedding some of the student’s favorite animals in the classroom activities. Robin taught new responses to the student. The student acquired new skills and progressed to kindergarten without challenging behavior. The student is now fully accepted by her peers, who seek her out. Since this occurred, Robin has presented her experiences at several workshops on the topic of implementing the behavior support process.
Certified Pyramid Plus Sites Expectations:
Program Wide Implementation of the Pyramid Model & Inclusion at high fidelity
- Establish a pro-inclusion policy and a ‘no expulsion’ clause
- Establish a leadership team and use Benchmarks of Quality
- Bi-Annual TPOT and/or TPITOS to monitor implementation performance
- Bi-Annual SSIS/SSRS and BIR to monitor child outcomes
- Attendance at Summer Institute & Fall Training
- Elect at least one coach to be certified through Pyramid Plus
- Elect at least one trainer to be certified through Pyramid Plus
- Develop site tour packet and conduct classroom tours
- Participate in Pyramid Plus Site certification annually
- Create a family involvement plan based on inclusion & social emotional competence
- Involve community leaders in pyramid practices
Pyramid Plus Expectations:
- Pyramid Plus will assign each site a Technical Assistant (TA)
- On-site visits from Pyramid Plus TA at least twice a month
- Weekly contact with Pyramid Plus TA via phone, email or web
- Support to sites to achieve high fidelity implementation
- Pyramid Plus TA will provide program-wide leadership team, coach, and/or trainer with feedback from site visits within three days
- Pyramid Plus will cover registration fees for Summer Institute and Fall Training for the demonstration site trainer, coach, administrator and two additional participants
- Pyramid Plus will maintain a website providing helpful resources and updates
- Pyramid Plus will train and certify one coach and one trainer from each demo site
- Pyramid Plus will assist with family and community awareness
A Memorandum of Understanding will be drawn up and signed by the Certified Site and Pyramid Plus. Click here to see a sample MOU.