This was a program we began during the 2018-2019 school year. The purpose of this program was to encourage students to increase school performance; basically by rewarding students that are struggling due to the progress they exhibit to improve. This could be by submitting homework when they typically haven’t in the past, participating in class, or improving their grades. Every 9 weeks, teachers of each third-grade class submit the name of a boy or girl which they have noticed improvements in their efforts. These students are presented a certificate by a Kiwanis member and Raising Cane’s has partnered with us to award these students with a free kids meal. At the conclusion of the school year, all of the boy names and all the girl names from that school are entered into a drawing, and one lucky boy and one lucky girl are presented with a brand new bicycle. This program was piloted the first year at Park Vista Elementary for their third graders and at Hope for Opelousas for their middle and elementary school-aged kids. Teachers were blown away on the progress that was made by this incentive to improve, thus we expanded it during the 2019-2020 school year to include all public schools in SLP.
