September 16, 2009

Dear Parents/Guardians:

8^th grade Incentive Program

In an effort to reward students’ efforts in completing their assignments and exhibiting the proper behavior, the 8^th grade will be conducting an incentive program. At various times during each of the quarters this year, students who have no missing assignments and no detentions or suspensions will be invited to participate in the incentive. Some of the incentives that we may do include a pizza lunch, ice cream treats, movies, healthy snacks, and bowling. In some cases, we may request a small fee to help cover some of the costs of the activity.

In the past, incentive deadlines were announced, allowing those students with missing work to "catch up" by the deadline. We feel, however, that this did nothing more than cause the students to haphazardly complete any missing work they had, with little to no learning taking place. This year we are going to randomly choose unannounced dates, and those students who have no missing work and no detentions or suspension will be invited to participate in the incentive. We feel this will be a better representation of those students who consistently complete their work on time and behave properly.

We look forward to having these incentives be a fun reward for your child’s hard work and cooperation. If a student is not able to participate in an incentive, he/she will still be expected to be at school and will be in a study hall to aid him/her in completing missing assignments or set up a behavioral plan.

Thank you,

The Eighth Grade Team