Dealing with student behavior and effort choices each day is a chore for any parent or educator.  Unfortunately, many students who come to school each and every day with a positive attitude and good effort get mistakenly forgotten as teachers work diligently with those students who lack the behavior and effort needed to be successful in school.  At Glendale, it is our hope to change this perspective with a new discipline learning system for our building and encourage more students to make positive choices.

     Beginning on Tuesday, September 4, students will begin earning an opportunity for a monthly incentive for good behavior choices all month.  Each student will be issued a Pride Card.  For each day in the month that a student earns an “A” grade for effort and/or conduct, a point is given to that student on his or her Pride Card. (A possible total of ten punches in a regular five day week.)  At the end of the month, students who have earned at least 85% of the month’s possible points will earn a building incentive (such as a special treat, extra recess, etc.).  The 85% requirement allows for students to have “bad days” and still be able to regroup, make better choices, and change the negative behavior.  Students will be issued a new Pride Card each month.  At the bottom of each box, however, there is a box which will be used by Mr. Estes if he interprets that a student’s action are gross misconduct (such as bullying behaviors, physical aggression that is not self defense, in-school suspensions, out of school suspensions, etc.).  In this case, Mr. Estes reserves the right to put an “X” in that box and take away that student’s ability to earn the incentive for the month.  The student will be issued a new card the next month, and it is our hope the student can start over and make a goal for improvement. 

     Teachers will be documenting any trends of behavior and reporting those trends to the building Discipline Committee.  It is our hope not to just set up an incentive program but to provide students with learning experiences to help extinguish negative behavior choices.  Teachers seeing trends of misbehavior or poor effort in their classrooms can then add character education lessons to their instructional day to help students have more success.  It is also our hope to work through some small group activities with students who may also be struggling building wide with some behavioral issues.  These types of educational experiences are required by the Illinois State Board of Education in their Social/Emotional Learning Standards.

     Along with the Pride Cards, students will be earning “Caught Being Good” tickets which can be rewarded to students who display random and self-directed acts of kindness and/or other good conduct behaviors.  Students can be given tickets by any staff member in the building.  Those tickets are recorded by the classroom teacher, and each teacher will be setting up a monthly system of acknowledgement for those students who earn a certain number of tickets or meet a specific goal.  A running total of these tickets will be kept, and students’ names will be displayed in the school hallway when students receive 100, 150, 200, 250, and 300 tickets this school year.  If we have to go higher, we will.

     We know that not every system works perfectly, and we know that some students need special accommodations to assist with behavior.  Those accommodations have been made.  Our goal is to give students the ability to make positive changes for themselves, and, hopefully, parents will be able to see the results at home, too.  We also want kids who ordinarily make good choices to be recognized as well.

     If you have any questions, please contact your child’s teacher or Mr. Estes at school.

Developing Good Character
 

Glendale Home

Panther Graphic courtesy of: Microsoft Clip Gallery Live