White County Middle School started this school year with a different focus: seeking out and addressing positive behavior.
“We assembled a team of teachers over the summer to address the behavior issues we had been having at WCMS,” Sara Halliburton, a seventh-grade teacher and the new program’s organizer, said. “We wanted to focus on rewarding positive behavior rather than always addressing bad behavior.”
The result of the summer brainstorming session, Warrior Bucks, is what Halliburton calls a school-wide token reward system that all students, teachers, administrators, and staff all participate in.
“Every staff member in the building has Warrior Bucks that we give students each week when we catch them doing something positive, such as helping a classmate, picking up trash, or holding the door for others,” she explained.
Halliburton said every teacher has a unique reward menu in their classroom, with things ranging from choosing a new seat to purchasing candy as well as there being a school-wide menu that students can choose rewards from. Additionally, the school hosts special events, such as drawings and VIP activities that students can buy their way into using their Warrior Bucks.
“I might also add that we reward teachers for buying into the program as well,” Halliburton added. “When a student’s name is drawn during a drawing, the teacher who rewarded that student also wins a prize.”
The results of instituting the Warrior Bucks program at the start of the 2020-2021 school year have been beyond what its organizers imagined.
“Students love the program and seem to really like that they are being recognized for doing the right thing,” Halliburton said, and then added that community sponsors have really stepped up and made sure that the school would have what they needed to recognize students for their positive behaviors.
“We have some really amazing sponsors in our community that have stepped up to donate money, gift cards, and items for us to give away to students,” Halliburton said. “It has been a humbling experience getting this program going. So many people have given, and it has completely exceeded my expectations. We live in a pretty amazing community!”
The list of sponsors includes:
“The driving thought behind this program was to focus on students doing the right thing,” Halliburton concluded, adding that the program was forcing teachers to notice the positive things students were doing and make sure to acknowledge them on a daily basis. “I think we tend to focus on students who do the wrong thing sometimes, and this is an opportunity to tell students we see the good and are proud of them.”
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