Student Services Advocates Positivity With Incentives
Editor in Chief
After entering AHS this school year, Assistant Principals of Student Services Carly Chavez and Edgar Alas set a new goal in hopes of creating a more positive atmosphere on campus: the Student Services incentive program. The program, which they hope to implement within the next month, would reward students for good behavior with memos that can be exchanged for raffle tickets, which would then be drawn once a week on Fridays to determine who would receive a prize.
“We’re always about discipline, but we also want to support students who are doing the right thing,” Chavez said. “Students do so many different things on campus and it’s important to recognize that.”
Every faculty member on campus would receive “good news” memos to distribute to “any student on campus who has shown what a true Moor represents, from academic achievement to positive attitudes to demonstrating exceptional character traits.” Chavez and Alas were inspired by memos addressed to parents from teachers that they had found while cleaning up their office.
“We hope this sparks other students to do better,” Alas said.
However, not all students agreed that the program would necessarily be beneficial.
“What will happen when there is no more reward?” senior Patrick Cheng said. “Appropriate and helpful behavior should be expected of students at this age. In your future job, your boss will expect these attributes from you.”
Others believe that the program would not be able to change the way students act because of their existing beliefs about their own actions.
“The intentions are good, but I don’t think [this program will] produce the kind of result [the Assistant Principals are] looking for,” senior Alexyss Hernandez said. “Despite any kind of reward, some kids just don’t have interest in having good behavior because it’s not ‘cool.’”
However, there are those who do envision the program as an effective method to promote positivity at school.
“It would benefit everyone; those who are always in trouble would attempt to do better to get said reward,” senior David Hernandez said. “Less people would be sent [to Student Services for discipline] and I think it would allow students to fix problems and focus on education.”