Awarded a grant from the Department of Defense Education Activity, the Oak Harbor School District has a new focus for upcoming school years.

The $400,000, four-year grant is to be used for “positive behavior interventions for students,” said Assistant Superintendent Steve King.

“What it will do is give us some positive behavior strategies and things we can do consistently for kids throughout the district,” King said.

The school district received two other DoDEA grants in recent years. They went toward  improving reading among elementary students and to the middle schools, according to Janice Gaare, director of Special Programs.

Because of its success with the earlier grants, the district was invited to apply for the latest one, Gaare said.

“Our goal with the grant is to improve the social/emotional skills of the special education students, so they’ll be more actively engaged,” Gaare said.

“A lot of our special education students — not all of them, but a lot of them — lack some of the social skills that they need to be successful in the classroom and lack some of the behavior control they need to be successful in the classroom,” Gaare said.

The money will go, in part, toward professional development of the district’s staff as well as increased staffing.

Oak Harbor will consult with other districts that had success with similar goals, King said.

“It’s important because I think our students and our parents should know that our response to behavior is predictable and consistent,” King said, “and it’s really important that our staff is equipped with the best strategies possible.”

Because professional development will be school-wide, the expectation is that the grant will benefit not only just special education students, but all students.

“We really think that the grant will have positive outcomes for all students in our district,” King said.