RICHFIELD, OH, Nov. 17, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Navigate360, the nation’s leader in K–12 student wellness and physical safety solutions, has acquired PBIS Rewards, a SaaS platform that simplifies the implementation and management of the evidence-based, tiered framework for supporting students’ behavioral, academic, social, emotional and mental health. The acquisition expands Navigate360’s leading whole-child safety suite, giving district leaders the tools, expertise and confidence they need to create safe school environments for 50 million U.S. students and strengthen the academic performance of our youth.
PBIS, which stands for Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, provides a framework for schools and educators to create a safe learning environment where students feel valued and connected through tiered support. With the addition of PBIS Rewards, Navigate360 is setting the new standard for whole-child safety through modern, holistic solutions that address school climate and culture, full-cycle emergency management, early detection, assessment and violence prevention—issues that all desperately require action in today’s schools.
In March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published data tied to the growing concern around students’ mental health. According to the findings, more than one-third—37 percent—of high school students reported that they experienced poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, middle and high school students identified depression, stress and anxiety as the biggest barriers to their learning according to a report from YouthTruth, a national nonprofit that surveys K–12 students and their families.
“School safety, culture and student wellness needs continue to evolve as we emerge from the pandemic. Parents and administrators fight an uphill battle to improve academic performance while also addressing mental wellness issues and school violence” said JP Guilbault, Chief Executive Officer at Navigate360. “This school-year alone, we are seeing a 30–50% increase in tips and alerts related to self-harm, weapons and sexual violence. Combining Motivating Systems’ leading PBIS Rewards platform with Navigate360 further advances our ability to identify early warning signs associated with a pathway to violence or self-harm, and connect our youth with the help needed so they can return to a pathway to wellness,” Guilbault continued.
“Traditional point solutions continue to frustrate and burden school staff due to outdated, siloed and built for other country’s policy and regulations, and offer static experiences that cannot address evolving needs of the whole child. Today’s schools need a clear path to holistic safety and student wellness—one that is humanistic, inclusive and contextualized. This marks another step forward in providing schools with the data-driven insights and tools needed to effectively reinforce positive behavior while identifying and connecting those students showing early signs of concerning behavior with the right resources at the right time,” added Guilbault.
An integral part of education and human development, research shows social-emotional learning has a positive effect on students’ academic performance, relationships, mental health and more. The acquisition gives educators using Navigate360 the tools to accelerate the learning of behaviors that foster healthy identities and relationships—while helping correct behaviors with contextual interventions.
Pairing PBIS Rewards with Navigate360’s Suite360 mental, social and character-building intervention curricula, as well as Behavioral Threat & Suicide Case Management, educators can:
- Deliver whole-child character and life skill education and recognize their students’ positive behaviors—providing positive reinforcement that motivates students
- Identify early signs of distress in their students through social-emotional check-ins, while also documenting concerning behavior to ensure early interventions
- Connect, share and analyze critical information with colleagues about behavioral threat assessment case management
- Leverage reports and key insights from school-, district- and profile-level data
- Apply thousands of robust and prescriptive intervention courses that support playbooks aligned with schools’ PBIS and MTSS frameworks
“For the past six years, we have successfully empowered educators to transform their classroom and school climates into positive learning environments through PBIS Rewards,” said Pat Heck, Chief Executive Officer at PBIS Rewards. “We know that when schools and districts prioritize PBIS Rewards, office referrals and suspensions drastically decrease. To date, we have impacted more than 2 million students in 7 countries, and we are excited to expand our work through Navigate360.”
Founded in 2016, Motivating Systems is the parent company for PBIS Rewards, Workplace Rewards and TRiO Perks—helping organizations motivate people to do their best. Through Motivating Systems’ software-as-a-service platforms, organizations can utilize technology and reward systems to motivate people with positive reinforcement.
Pat Heck will continue with Navigate360 as the Company’s Chief Technology Officer, and PBIS Rewards customers will continue to receive the service and support they have come to expect from the team and Navigate360 customers can look forward to learning more about PBIS Rewards in the coming weeks.
To learn more about the acquisition, visit https://navigate360.com/blog-news/The-Future-of-Whole-Child-Student-Safety/. For more information on Navigate360, please visit https://www.navigate360.com.
About Navigate360
Navigate360 is the nation’s leader in K–12 mental wellness and physical safety solutions, and the most widely chosen safety partner in the United States, protecting more than 50,000 schools, districts, law enforcement agencies, businesses and houses of worship nationwide. For more than 20 years, they have helped communities mitigate and reduce acts of violence with solutions backed by research and developed by industry experts.
Through their complementary and integrated suite of safety and wellness solutions, they enable organizations to enhance their safety plans with threat detection and prevention, mental health and wellness, safety management and preparedness, and active shooter response training. The success of every Navigate360 partner is ensured with world-class, U.S.-based safety consultants who help customize, implement and support their solutions. To learn more, visit https://www.navigate360.com.
About PBIS Rewards
PBIS Rewards is a software-as-a-service solution that provides an automated schoolwide PBIS management system. PBIS Rewards simplifies the tracking of the PBIS framework within a school. An evidence-based framework used by schools to improve school culture and student behavior, PBIS promotes a safe environment for learning. To learn more, visit https://www.pbisrewards.com.
