Overby-Sheppard rewards good behavior
From Style a great article on the new “Reward Good Behavior” policy going on at Overby-Sheppard Elementary.
One choice in particular, Stokes says, has been paying big dividends at her Overby-Sheppard Elementary School: a new behavior-rewards program introduced two years ago that eschews the city school system’s zero-tolerance disciplinary policy. The program, which establishes a reward system for good behavior to stave off discipline problems before they start, is still in its early stages, but the results are promising.…
To the casual observer, the new policy looks more like a game than a disciplinary tool. Teachers, administrators and school staff wear pouches around their necks filled with colored slips of paper. The Soar Bucks — akin to Monopoly money — provide the basis for a system that relies on good old-fashioned child psychology.
Want a bad-behaving child to change? Reward the well-behaving child next to him, the theory goes, showering that child in praise and fake money that can then be used to buy real rewards like toys or tickets to attend fun school functions.
The school had a total of 74 suspensions last year.
to clarify about the 74 suspensions, this was for the 2007-2008 school year… the 2008-2009 school had dramatically less…
from the article:
“In a school system that handed out 21,000 suspensions in the 2007-2008 school year, Overby-Sheppard is an underachiever. It suspended 74 pupils. This year, the school handed out fewer than a dozen suspensions.”
Sounds like a great new system… glad to hear about it since I live down the street and will be sending my kids there one day.