Franklin Middle School Students Win Mountain Bikes For Staying Positive

A group of Franklin Middle School students on June 16 learned that positive behavior can pay off when they were told they’d won new bikes in a special raffle

A group of Franklin Middle School students were surprised June 16 when they walked into the school cafeteria.

There, lined up against a wall, were 10 brand new bicycles.

And the bikes were theirs.

The students won the bikes in a special end-of-the-year raffle held by the school’s Positive Behavior Support in Schools program. The students became eligible for the raffle during the year for exhibiting positive behavior and earning special tokens, said Katherine LaBirt, the school’s coordinator of discipline and attendance and PBSIS coach.

The so-called “Knight Tokens” are given out by staff whenever they see a student upholding one of the program’s four expectations: to have pride, be respectful, be responsible and be safe, LaBirt said.

The tokens are used for a variety of purposes, including swapping for items in the school store and entering smaller raffles during the school year, she said.

For the big raffle, every student who met certain criteria was entered, and then they could submit more entries using the Knight Tokens they had acquired, she said.

Which resulted in the scene in the school cafeteria.

The students walked in not knowing why they were there, but their faces brightened up immediately when they saw the bikes against the wall. Included in each student’s winning package were helmets, t-shirts, bicycle locks and frisbees.

The students also won helmets, t-shirts, bike locks and frisbees.

The looks of hopeful anticipation became outright joy when they were told they could each pick a bike.

Daniel Nuñez could not wait to take his for a spin.

“Can I ride it around here?” the 8th Grader asked school principal Reginald Davenport.

“Yes, but be careful,” Davenport said, as Nuñez started to slowly ride around the room’s perimeter.

“This is just really awesome,” Nuñez said later, as he stood over his new bike. “I’ve never won a contest or anything like that. To be able to get a bike is so cool.”

The bikes were acquired through the Long Island, NY-based Bikes for Kids In America program, said Debra Osman, one of the school’s Dean of Students and a member of the PBSIS team.

“We are just real proud of these kids, and they deserve it,” she said. “They’re respectful, they’re responsible, they show school pride. It shows that good things do pay off.”

“I thought it was great,” Miriam Francis, a 7th Grade language arts teacher and the PBSIS team leader, said of the students’ reactions to their bikes. “I got all excited with them, too.”

“It’s really exciting because they didn’t know anything about this,” she said. “All they knew was there was a big raffle at the end of the year, but they didn’t know for what.”

“It was exciting to see their faces,” LaBirt said. “I only wish we had a video tape of it.”

Your Thoughts

comments