As part of Tier 1, it is essential to encourage students to follow the identified expectations every day. The best way to get students to continue to engage in appropriate behavior, is by creating a school-wide acknowledgment system. The purpose of a school-wide acknowledgment system is to provide all staff with the means to acknowledge those students who are displaying positive behaviors. By pairing the acknowledgment (i.e., praise) with the delivery of an earned reward, students are more likely to engage in those recognized, desired behaviors more often. To be effective and gain student buy-in, all staff must participate in acknowledging students for following the school-wide expectations.
On a daily basis, a student can earn Kindness Tickets when they are caught being B.E.A.R.S. by a staff member. Kindness Tickets are intended to serve as a reminder to staff to catch kids doing the right thing, in pursuit of a 5 to 1 positive to negative ratio at Vine Hill.
All staff members, volunteers and substitute teachers should have the opportunity to hand out Kindness Tickets whether they teach that particular student or not, and tickets can be handed out across all school settings. Kindness Tickets are designed to be user friendly. They will only take a quick moment to fill out. It can be important to teach and remind students that they will not receive a Kindness Ticket if they ask for it.
How does the process work?
A staff member observes a student displaying one of the behaviors outlined on the expectations matrix or another positive behavior in school.
The staff member hands a completed Kindness Ticket to the student while complementing the student. Tickets should always be accompanied with a verbal explanation to the student identifying the specific behavior they are being recognized for and linking the behavior to a school rule. For example, “Wow, thank you for stopping to help pick up Jenni’s books, that was very Responsible of you. You’ve earned a Kindness Ticket.”
The student brings the award back to his or her classroom. Individual teachers will determine how these are collected and tallied.
Before each Kindness Assembly, the teacher will determine who has 10 or more tickets. For every 10 tickets the student receives, they will choose which charity they want a dollar donated to, and will participate in the Kindness Assembly.