Submitted by Michael Derry (not verified) on February 15, 2008 - 12:53am.
Marc,
I have been a school social worker in both baltimore city and baltimore county for the past 10 years....
While I need to think a bit more about actually paying students CASH .... I'd like to offer this perspective.
When I was in the City I worked at a school for students with developmental disabilities. The entire school was build around a token economy system. The school gave me money to stock a large school store of items ranging from pencils to sticker, to footballs, to cameras. The student could earns "points" and were given poker chips which they turned in.. .They could either either buy items each week or save up for larger items; thier tallies were kept in a ledger.
Baltimore County now has a system wide program called PBIS... (Positive behavior Intervention system)
Students earn "gotchas" when they engage is identified positive behaviors... They can then turn these in for prizes or turn them in for raffles. Part of my job is to elnist the support of businesses to give us donations and gift cards.... At times we actually give out gift cards... other times we buy items such as ipods which they are eligible to win....
So while we may not "freely give out cash" we certainly do reward positive behaviors(including improved academic perforance with material items...
Marc, I have been a school
Marc,
I have been a school social worker in both baltimore city and baltimore county for the past 10 years....
While I need to think a bit more about actually paying students CASH .... I'd like to offer this perspective.
When I was in the City I worked at a school for students with developmental disabilities. The entire school was build around a token economy system. The school gave me money to stock a large school store of items ranging from pencils to sticker, to footballs, to cameras. The student could earns "points" and were given poker chips which they turned in.. .They could either either buy items each week or save up for larger items; thier tallies were kept in a ledger.
Baltimore County now has a system wide program called PBIS... (Positive behavior Intervention system)
Students earn "gotchas" when they engage is identified positive behaviors... They can then turn these in for prizes or turn them in for raffles. Part of my job is to elnist the support of businesses to give us donations and gift cards.... At times we actually give out gift cards... other times we buy items such as ipods which they are eligible to win....
So while we may not "freely give out cash" we certainly do reward positive behaviors(including improved academic perforance with material items...
Michael Derry, LCSW-C