School Gives Cash Prizes For On-Time Students
Published: February 3, 2009
ERWIN, Tenn. (AP) - Students at a northeast Tennessee high school are getting a cash reward for being in class on time.
A new program began last week at Unicoi County High School in Erwin, under which a monthly $300 prize is awarded to a student -
to be split equally with his or her parents.
Sophomore Aaron Shelly got the first one and plans to spend his $150 half treating friends at a Red Lobster.
School truancy employee LeAnn Bowman told the Johnson City Press the school is held accountable for the students’ education and
teachers can’t educate them if they’re not there.
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Information from: Johnson City Press,
http://www.johnsoncitypress.com
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Reader Reactions
When I was in High School we had these large yellowish square vehicles that came by your house in the morning, if you stand outside they will pick you up and take you to school on time. I guess they do not offer that service anymore. And the parents get paid? How about using that $300 one month and buying every student an ALARM CLOCK. These are high schoolers not 1st graders. Get real people.
In our school district and probably all others in the state of TN, it isn’t the parents that are binding the teachers. Once they get to the High School level you are lucky if you can get to talk to them. It is the state, and the no child left behind laws. I understand their concepts and I understand testing to assure that systems are teaching basics but that is all students accomplish is preperations for state tests so they get high marks and more money. Just because someone scores well on the TCAP test does not mean they can tie their shoes.
Great points, evaningstar. Teachers’ hands are tied as to what they can teach. Administrators are running scared of any and all parents. Most hide under their desks all day. Lots of students get out of school, having passed all the appropriate tests, yet they don’t know how to do anything. How about a class called—-Real World Situations 101?
Many schools and employers use incentive programs to reward employees and students to make an effort at perfect or good attendance. I don’t see anything wrong with an incentive program. The schools have become so mechanical and no longer teach life skills to the students, they might as well come up with something even remotely interesting to throw at them. The only thing students do now is get taught how to take and pass and do well on state testing. No longer are kids taught how to become a well rounded person. For many years I have talked with various administrators in my students school system about teaching a life skills class to students. A class that would teach them key skills to life. Balancing a checkbook, creating a budget, sewing on a button, following basic food recipes, changing a tire etc. things that every person needs to know in life. Learning how to test is in now way beneficial unless you are going to test for a living.
My question here is this, the schools are facing detrimental budget shortfalls even closing schools in some areas and this system is able to come up with the extra money to do this program?
That is a slap in the face! Go the other way with it, take something away if they are not on time. Don’t kick them out or anything like that. That would be doing them a favor. Take all their electronics away and allow only a pencil and paper like the good old days.
This makes the students like puppies. When the puppy learns to do a trick, it gets a treat. How about parents and administrators allowing the teachers to do their jobs? Teachers aren’t allowed to teach students tough lessons about life. Currently, students and parents pretty much run things.
Paying students is CRAZY!!!!!
First of all, I do know people who get incentive bonuses for being on time to work and not using sick days. I think it’s a great idea. Personally, I never missed a day of school from the 3rd grade til I graduated, with the exception of a few days when my mother had surgery for a brain tumor when I was in the 5th grade. I was expected to be at school everyday and on time, just like all these other parents should expect of their children. I agree the parents should enforce and be responsible for this also, but an incentive doesn’t hurt either. I guess you people with negative comments also thought the GOAL card for straight A’s in school for incentive was a terrible idea too. It’s essentially the same thing…paying kids to do their homework. Have you stopped to think about the children who do have perfect attendance and who are there on time everyday? Maybe they,as well as their parents, could use a little extra cash for a change in these difficult economic times. Oh…and as long as I’m on my soapbox maybe this “paying” children to be on time to class is a repayment for all the years they’ve had to sell things for the school in fundraisers for the “free” education they are receiving. Maybe all the time and money the parents have spent driving their kids around to sell candy and other useless junk, so the school could have extra money for whatever they use it for, can be payed back with this $300. Trust me, I for one, was not allowed to participate in school fundraisers when I was growing up b/c my mother and father didn’t have the time or the money to drive me all over town to compete with the other kids and their parents about who could raise the most money.
That’s all that Denise Brown and her cronies know how to do is throw money at the problem. Maybe kids don’t want to go because between the director of schools and the pricipal it’s a militaristic state at the High School!!! Somebody needs to get her out of her director’s job!!!!!!!!
Good grades was always a motive for getting to class on time.
Where are the parents of these children? During my school years, parents were expected to and did their duties regarding their children’s behavior.
Maybe school is boring and could be improved by a little work on the part of the teachers.
Expect nothing, get nothing!!! But, to pay these kids is absurd!
This is really teaching these young adults about responsibility,paying them to do what they should be doing anyway. It is like dangling the carrot in front of a donkey that does not want to walk. What happens when the carrot is removed? Do you think their bosses will give them bonuses to be on time, so that they will do their work ?
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