Roosevelt Rewards is a new concept implemented this school year by Ms. Bridget Mullins, our Peer Mediator Coordinator. The goal of this program is to improve student behavior through a rewards system. How it works is: if you do something good or consistently show good behavior, you receive Raider Bucks from your teachers. With a certain amount of bucks you can buy things from our school store, which is currently under construction, and go to designated PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports) activities. 

This system works well for several students but for many others it doesn’t work at all. There could be two well behaving students, yet one could have 40 bucks and the other could have none simply because their teachers don’t give them out. This system is dependent on our teachers, so regardless of if you’re always on your best behavior, if your teachers don’t take time to give out Raider Bucks, you won’t get any. Juliet Ibironke, a sophomore at Eleanor Roosevelt says, “I didn’t expect to get many [Raider Bucks] because I know Roosevelt is big, but at all my old schools they [teachers] did good with distributing the incentive currency.” Despite Ibironke being a great student both behavioral and academic wise, she only has 2 Raider Bucks.

Even Ms. Mulins agrees that Raider Bucks might not always keep up with student behavior. She says,“ I don’t think the Roosevelt Rewards program perfectly reflects every part of student behavior, and honestly, I’m not sure it ever could.” This is valid, as having a system that accurately displays behavior is unrealistic, but we could certainly do better.

Through the Roosevelt Rewards website students are able to view “Top 10 Staff Submissions” for the current month. By the end of the month of December, teachers in the top 10 have given as few as 7 Bucks. This implies that the vast majority of teachers just don’t give out bucks as much as they should or at all.  Even Ms. Mullins says, “While the lack of participation has been frustrating, I cannot force adults to participate. I’ve tried to incentivize teachers.” Previous attempts at encouraging teachers to give out bucks have unfortunately not been successful.

This issue isn’t one with a simple solution. Teachers have a lot on their plates already, and adding something else to think about can be stressful and overwhelming. Ms. Mullins mentioned, “We are considering an alternative program that would allow teachers to use Synergy.” This solution would be a great start in making the task of giving Raider Bucks much smoother for teachers but it isn’t guaranteed to work. Another potential solution with much better chances of succeeding is simply students taking the initiative to remind their teachers to give out Bucks. Sometimes the best solutions aren’t the long and complicated ones, just asking can and probably will encourage teachers to better participate in the program.

Roosevelt Rewards has the potential to be a great and beneficial system to help improve students behavior. While the process of getting there has been rocky, the key to making this work can be as simple as asking.