As readers of this blog know, our elementary school uses an elaborate behavioral rewards program called PBIS. Under the program, teachers reward “well-behaved” students with little string bracelets. The kids can then exchange the bracelets for entries into a prize drawing that occurs at the end of each week. The more bracelets they earn, the better their chance of winning a prize. The school announces the prize winners over the public address system every Friday afternoon.
Last week, though, when the winners were announced, people noticed something strange. One of the winners was a kindergarten-age girl who had registered for school over the summer, but whose parents then decided to keep her in pre-school for an additional year. She doesn’t attend the school. Another winner was a girl who moved to South Dakota several weeks ago.
One can only imagine how two kids who don’t attend the school, but whose names may appear on an outdated school roster, could have won the weekly prize drawing. It certainly makes you wonder whether the school is being honest with the kids about how the winners are chosen.
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4 comments:
I hope you are honest with your own kids about this.
I'm wondering, "how did it happen?" and thinking, some kids exchanged their bracelets for entry and whoever they did that with, did not even know the kids and identified them as these others who don't even attend. Which means- there's a pretty high probability that other kids have given the bracelets, been misidentified as well- but as other kids who actually do currently attend. Good luck ever getting proof of that though.
Maybe the kids should demand a numbered receipt for every ticket purchased (with wampum)
The charter school my boys previously attended has an annual fundraiser where they raffle off, and drew the tickets between class performances at the Christmas show, Christmas gift baskets, (most were pretty valuable, included Disneyland tickets- etc.) Anyhow, the first year they did it, it was pretty obvious there was a statistical anomaly to say the least, and documented (as many people were videoing the Xmas show) As fifteen winner's were drawn and announced- they kept rising from one small area of the performance hall- the front right row, (staff/directors seating.)
SCF -- I do wonder what the kids make of all this. There hasn't been any explanation of it, that I know of.
Are you sure the entries are only good for one week or do the entries remain in play for the duration of the school year? At a PBIS school I am familiar with, the student's tickets (which are similar to the bracelets/entries) are put each week into one large bin that is kept throughout the year. This could explain how this happened.
Anonymous -- As I understand it, it's supposed to start fresh each week. But I wouldn't be surprised if people weren't all that careful about that. Still, at least one of the kids chosen had never attended the school at all, so there must be some further explanation.
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