“We Felt Connected”: How Sioux Central’s Behavior Team Traded Meetings for Real-Time Data

Sioux Central Community School District is a rural K–12 district in Iowa serving 13 feeder towns, with students frequently referred in from other districts. Jamie Turnbull, the district’s K–12 SEL/Behavioral Coordinator, oversees office referrals, two Tier 2 systems, the special education team, behavioral interventionists, and the student success coach.

The problem: the weekly meeting couldn’t cover every kid

The behavior team met on Mondays, but there was never enough time to get to individual students. And the meeting was behavior team only. Special education teachers, transition school teachers, and residential staff worked with the same kids the rest of the week without a way in.

Tracking lived in PowerSchool’s referral system, which was time-consuming, siloed, and built only to capture the negative. There was no way to see how a student’s week was trending without chasing people down.

“We have our meetings, as well as IEP meetings to discuss student progress. It was so nice to have real-time data for students as we discussed the targeted skills we were monitoring as a team.”

The shift: one shared, real-time view

With Cub Guide, anyone on the team pulls up a student and sees how the week is going. No meeting, no email, no interruption. Paras log from their phones at recess, assemblies, and field trips, and the tool doubles as the communication channel.

“The paras aren’t having to Google chat me to come to the classroom all the time. They can just say, ‘can you look at Tyson’s log and see what’s been going on this morning?’”

What changed

Accountability without the standoff. Jamie’s north star is student accountability, and because the rating is logged and visible, the data becomes the messenger instead of the adult.

“There were fewer battles with the paras and the students directly — the students realized they had a team of people who were monitoring their progress, not just the paraprofessional with them in the classroom at that moment.”

Reflection in the moment. Jamie pulls up a student’s log during lunch reflections and processes it together, on the spot, where it’s short and solution-based, not punitive: “It looks like it’s been a rough week… tell me about it. What support do you need?” It’s also a great way to communicate with parents to make sure everyone is on the same page.

IEPs that live in action, not on paper. Weekly or daily tracking by goal and skill was the standout for the special education team, and it extends to students without formal plans.

“We use it on kids who don’t have official plans, and then I just create a plan based upon the targeted skills the team and the student feel are necessary.”

The AI summary sealed it. The feature that won over the full K–12 special education learning team was the automatic narrative summary.

“That AI feature on how it summarizes. That sold them, for sure.”

Results

• 37 students tracked across K–12, with and without formal IEPs/BIPs
• 5,015 total behavior ratings captured by 25 paraprofessionals and staff
• Adoption across the special education team, admin, counselor, mental health professional, parents, and residential facility teachers, paras, and behavior interventionists
• Communication extended to the transitional school, residential staff, and social workers — including reporting to the state and DHS workers on progress made in an educational setting

The biggest change, in Jamie’s words

“We felt connected.”