Principal Scott Bacon spent a large portion of his summer researching ways to promote strong attendance in students — and found one in the School-Wide Positive Behavior Supports program (SWPBS).
He has a three-inch binder stocked full of research on the new incentives he adapted to fit BV. Schools throughout the country have promoted the ideas Bacon brought to BV this year. All of the schools are already involved in SWPBS.
“I spent quite a bit of time personally researching this over the summer so that we can take some baby steps and make an impact this year,” he said.
He said the new incentives are ideas that came from other schools, but were easily applicable to BV.
“As I read through that information I thought, ‘This fits our school perfectly,’” he said. “We were already doing a lot of it.”
The new incentives for this year are $10 Tuesdays and monthly iPod giveaways. The giveaways are not funded in any way by the district; the money comes from the Pepsi fund, as well as various donors such as Community America Credit Union.
The incentives will fall into line with the Tiger Token award that already exists. The idea is that if a student has no unexcused absences, tardies or missing assignments they have a change to win $10 that week.
Junior Lauren Holland, the first ever $10 Tuesday winner, said the incentive has made a difference for her, and made her friends excited, too.
“It’ll give motivation to some people,” she said. “They think its cool that you could win $10 for just showing up and doing stuff.”
If the student has near-perfect attendance for the month and meets the no tardy or late work requirement, they have the opportunity to win in the iPod giveaway.
Holland said she appreciates the incentives even more because most schools don’t reward students in this way.
“We actually care that people are doing homework and are on time,” she said. “Not every school would do that.”
Bacon said he hopes the incentives will make a difference for students, because the new program provides more opportunities to be recognized.
“We try to be as clear as we can about the kind of things we hope to see,” Bacon said. “We will continue to do that and hopefully do a better job of making that clear.”