RICH Raider Tickets Reward R.I.C.H. Students Schoolwide
Before, the AHS philosophy was that if you stayed out of trouble, you stay out of the spotlight, but now the rules are changing. With the R.I.C.H. Raider ticket system, students are being recognized for good behavior.
Respect. Integrity. Citizenship. Hardwork. Those are the four pillars of AHS. For a long time, the idea of being RICH was ambiguous. There was no way for a student to know if they were being R.I.C.H, but now the R.I.C.H. Raiders are getting recognized for all types of good behavior.
“I stood up for someone... I was defending that person,” said Tia Fowler, AHS senior, and R.I.C.H. Raider ticket winner.
Despite being new to AHS, the driving idea behind R.I.C.H Raider tickets is an old philosophy.
“For R.I.C.H. Raider tickets, we were looking for a way to use positive reinforcement for great student behavior. It’s very simple. Rather than always punishing students for bad behavior, look for ways to reinforce good behavior, thus encouraging more good behavior. It’s a concept that has been around for a long long long long time, we had just never tapped into it here, other than just a verbal way of doing it,” Sheldon Fisher, AHS orchestra teacher, and member of the Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (P.B.I.S) team said.
The P.B.I.S. team is the group of faculty members who came up for the idea for R.I.C.H. Raider tickets. However, they’re only a part of what came to be the R.I.C.H Raider tickets.
First of all, anything that happens at AHS has to be approved and supported by the administration. But in this case, the P.B.I.S. team didn’t have to do much to win them over.
“Administration was thrilled. Anything to make Alpharetta a better place.” said Kathleen Hubbard, AHS English Teacher, and member of the P.B.I.S. team.
Next, the faculty had to get on board. If the teachers aren’t willing to give out the tickets in the first place, the program will do nothing.
“Then we had to have faculty buy in on it also. So for the faculty to buy in on that, we felt like we had to give some faculty rewards also. So that’s why you hear not only this week’s R.I.C.H raiders are, and they name the students, they also have a place on those tickets for a faculty name to go on there. So then the faculty, who are locating and identifying RICH Raiders, also receive a prize. Whether it’s a blue jeans ticket when you can wear blue jeans for a day, or maybe a gift card,” Fisher said.
Dr. Kersey became a pivotal factor in teacher incentives.
“Dr. Kersey is funding part of it, so when we need, teachers actually get prizes too, if their tickets are pulled with their kids name, they get to pick from a candy bar and a soda or a jeans ticket and that was purchased by doctor Kersey,” said Whitney Decaminada, faculty head of the student council and member of the P.B.I.S. team.
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Next, it was up to the student council to get the prizes together.
“[Student council] came up with all the prizes. So everything, like the gift cards, the football game entrance. They wrote a letter to every organization that we got donations from.” said Decaminada.
The student council is also in charge of formulating new ideas to make R.I.C.H. Raider tickets more enticing.
“We have a plan right now, right now we have weekly prizes, but we want to start putting all the slips into a big bucket every month and give them a big prize, like a 50 dollar gas card, or a few of those, or maybe we can get iPads, so that’s what we’re doing with the money we raised” said Decaminada.
All the work put into the program seems to being paying off with the teachers.
“I have come to get excited about it. Initially I was a little concerned... But then I thought about it, we’re doing it every single week...so essentially, everyone can get one. And I’m not such the person, that is like ‘everyone deserves a trophy’ but in a way when it comes to being in class, it’s not a trophy, but everyone deserves to be recognized… When I realized that every kid could get one, I was totally on board,” said Kim Holliday, 9th and 12th grade English teacher.
“They seem to be pleased when they get one…. I like doing it, I like being able to do that for a student and some of them I’ve seen surprise in their faces when I give them one and that’s kind of cool” said Hubbard.
The student council is working to make R.I.C.H Raider tickets appeal to the students, based on the feedback and suggestions of the AHS student body.
“Ask them if they have any suggestions of prizes they would love to see, and tell them to email me. I would love that. Because right now it’s just student council and my leadership class that comes up with the ideas, but it’d be cool if everyone could have a say,” said Decaminada.
Students who want to make suggestions can reach out to Ms. Decaminada at Decaminada@fultonschools.org.
