In the 2023-2024 school year, the PBIS team started a new event at Snyder Elementary called Popcorn Fridays. This is where students can buy popcorn for $1 on the last Friday of each month. The PBIS Team works hard at encouraging and rewarding students for RISE behavior throughout the Sayre Area School District. RISE stands for Respect, Integrity, Self-Control and Empathy.

“I love getting yummy popcorn with my friends. It's a nice treat for being good and doing my work,” said sixth grader Mckenna Anderson.

Many adults help out to help make popcorn Friday a success including PBIS Team members, PTG parent members, and cafeteria staff. It takes half a day to make all the popcorn needed for the students. Many students look forward to Popcorn Friday each month. Multiple staff members also commented on how much students look forward to receiving their popcorn.

“I like Popcorn Fridays because it makes my students happy,” said Fifth-Grade Teacher and member of the PBIS Team, Mrs. Gaydos.

Mr. Ground 

Onendaga Tribe

Students filled the room at Snyder for an assembly to listen to Indigenous Stories told by Mr. Ground. Mr. Ground is part of the Onendaga tribe and travels to different schools in the area every day in the fall to teach other people about his culture.

"Anytime I tell stories, I am teaching people about my culture. My culture is different from most people's and I think it is important for others to learn about different cultures," said Mr. Ground.

Mr. Ground's mom was from Onendaga tribe and his dad was from a different tribe. He is considered from the Onendaga tribe because Native Americans follow the tribe of their mother. Mr. Ground came dressed head to toe wearing everything from his tribe. His clothes were all made by hand, not in a factory, and each part of his outfit means something. 

"My favorite part of the assembly was learning about his tribe," said Second-Grader Landon Bradley.

This October, we had our annual RISE homecoming assembly.  RISE stands for Respect, Integrity, Self Control, and Empathy. At this assembly, high school athletes come to share their talents and socialize with kids here at Snyder. Miss Burgess, in 6th grade noted that it takes a lot of collaboration to come up with assemblies like this. 

"We meet every Tuesday to bounce ideas around. It took about a month to plan this assembly since it has a lot of moving parts,” said Miss Burgess.

Miloh Farrell, in 5th grade, thinks that the part of RISE most important to her class is respect. She noted one way to show respect is, “when the teacher is talking, you don’t talk.” 

The Pep Rally assembly also included Minute to Win it games. Students from both Snyder as well as some students from the high school sports' teams, participated in some friendly competition while cheering each other on.  

"It felt good to play a game in front of everyone and have all the older kids cheer for us," said Kindergartener Jonah Hadlock. 

Not only elementary school students enjoyed this event. 10th grader, Lexi Shannon mentioned that her favorite part of coming to Snyder is, “getting to see all the kids smile and have a good time.” 7th grader Lucas Carpenter said he likes that the high school students that attended were able to be in the assembly instead of sitting back and wanting to be in it.

 “My favorite part of the pep rally was the minute to win it games. I liked watching them and they were fun and entertaining,” said sixth-grader, Emma Sanderson. 

This year, Sayre hosted the Cavalcade of Band event that takes place on the last Wednesday of September every year. This event includes all the bands from both Bradford and Sullivan County to come participate and perform.

"It was amazing to see all the different bands and instruments. The music was fun to listen to," said third-grader Norah Hadlock.

Many preparations were made for this event to be successful. The preparations started last year and continued throughout the season involving a lot of work behind the scenes such as completing paperwork, picking the show, and choosing the band piece. 

The events of the night begin with a mass band piece rehearsal starting at 5:00 when all of the band arrive. This year, due to weather, the mass band rehearsal was moved to the auditorium. Dinner was also provided for students in the cafeteria by volunteers. Much of the night could not have been possible without the help of all the volunteers.

The Sayre Marching Band performed and opened the show with the National Anthem. Then, each school performed their show prepared for the night. After Sayre's final performance, all of the bands come to the front of the stadium and perform the mass band piece together, which this year was "Shut Up and Dance" by Walk the Moon and arranged by Matt Conaway.

“I thought the Sayre Marching Band had one of their best performances that night. They were full of energy and absolutely on point with their performance. I am so incredibly proud of all the work they put in this season,” said Mrs. Ackerman.