Positive awards students do the cookie challange

By Francesca Carten

Each month, Plymouth High School has positive awards for each grade level. Mr.Olsen and other teachers pick out students for the perfect attendance, student of the month, and the growth award. These awards are for students that help others by being positive. Each month there is an awards ceremony so those people that get nominated can show their fellow classmates how they can do positive things and their classmates can learn from them.

There is also a teacher of the month award in which students can nominate their favorite teacher that does positive things to make them feel better. The freshman October “Teacher of the Month” was Health teacher and football coach Mr. John Barron. He asks how students are doing and helps them excel. Mr. Barron said that it was “a great feeling knowing that students appreciate what I do, or what I try to do.” He said, “I love the relationships that can be formed between myself and my students. I love helping students. I love listening to students share their ideas. I love watching them grow and mature and become young adults through good, and not so good, decisions. I also love to coach. Coaching and teaching go hand in hand – the football field and the track are just extensions of the classroom.”

The freshman class Perfect attendance winner was Tiffany DeWitt and she said, “One thing that motivates me is that I hate missing a day of school because you can miss so much in just one day”. There is also a “growth award” where students that receive this award have improved on their academics and their grades and they have worked harder this year to improve and grow in their learning skills. Freshman Tanner Medina won this year’s growth award.

Dean of students Mr. Kenneth Olson is in charge of the positive awards and he gave a brief description over what the awards are. He said, “For student of the month, the teachers do it by filling out a positive behavior form.” After that, Mr. Olson pulls out the student’s name that are referred from a monthly ballot and then the teachers vote. Mr. Olson said, “For perfect attendance, I search to see who had perfect attendance and then use a google name picker to select the winner. For the growth award, the teachers recommend students who have shown growth academically, in attendance, or getting to class on time. Mr. Delp, Mrs. Portteus, and Mrs. Eveland (who are members of the PBIS core committee) then vote. Next month, all of the staff members on the committee will vote.”