Attendance is one of the biggest issues here on campus. I mean, who would want to get up and be on time in such an early setting? The learning directors at Los Banos High School, Mrs. Dias and Mrs. Latta came up with this little but rewarding new way to keep students motivated to have perfect attendance.

So how does this work? Our learning directors are starting at the first of every month and tracking each student’s attendance until the end of the month. Students with perfect attendance get their name written on a ticket and the tickets are then delivered to each student, explaining their reward for their dedication to showing up on time to school. This “treat” is held in the library at break two days after students receive their ticket. Students who show up to get their treat will have another ticket raffle with a chance to win an additional prize.  Prizes include some sort of snack, and the second prize was a Starbucks gift card.

Then at the end of the year, as a final prize, students who had perfect attendance all year long, Mrs. Latta and Mrs. Dias will reward them with a trip to the movies on a school day.

This new program just started the beginning of last semester. So far, in the month of  August and ending in the middle of September, 104 students had perfect attendance and 38 of those showed to be rewarded. In the month of October, 138 students had perfect attendance and 37 of students came in at break. The most effective month, November, 280 students had perfect attendance and 72 of them received their treat. As December was not recorded due to the shortness of the month, January’s number of perfect attendances plummeted to 166 with 41 kids showing up. “Because of how many students were sick in the month of January, the number of students with perfect attendance dropped,” says Mrs. Latta.

Overall this new way to keep students showing up to school is, “pretty effective. It’s just a little something to make our students feel recognized, maybe to even brighten a day…we just wanted to do something positive,” says Mrs. Latta.