HHS once again participated in a student incentive to boost schoolwide attendance to a 93% student arrival rate. Friday Fun Day has not been a new concept at HHS, as it was introduced when Principal David Williams came into the position in the 2022-2023 school year as a way to encourage students to work towards a common goal for the school, often being grades and attendance.
HHS Administrative Intern Eli Philips is the main head of the incentive program, where he tallied scores of absent and late students. Over the last three weeks, the school managed to get over 93% attendance, meaning Friday Fun Day happened on April 10th, with teachers reserving the last 80 minutes of school to hold fun events for the students to sign up and attend.
“The goals for the school are to boost our student attendance and to cut down on the amount of students who are substantially late to school. We were noticing over the course of second semester our attendance dropping from a cliff of around 92.5% over the early bits of the year to a little bit below 90% for the totality of second semester to this point,” Philips said. “We wanted to change that.”
However, the attendance was not the only thing the Administration wanted to tackle: they wanted to lower the number of late arrivals.
“We also had a daily average of around 25 plus kids coming to school after 7:50; obviously, that’s problematic, it’s unsustainable … So, we wanted 93% aggregated attendance across all grade levels, and we wanted to reduce the late arrivals as kids come in after 7:50 by at least a third,” Philips said.
Positive incentives such as this are not uncommon for the school, as this has happened in previous years. Over 280 students participated in this particular Friday Fun Day, with over 20 different teachers hosting events ranging from card games, movies, karaoke, magic tricks, and more.
“I went to Mrs. Jackson’s class, and we painted pictures,” Junior Nick Hackmann said. “I did a Bob Ross [style picture].”
Most students took it as a time to relax and have fun before the week’s end.
Junior Dylan Holt plays Roblox in the school’s computer lounge on Friday Fun Day. (Elizabeth McMurray)“I signed up for Meyer’s gaming [activity],” Junior Dylan Holt said. “I mostly played Roblox and a little bit of Xbox.”
Overall, Friday Fun Day was a success for HHS, and the administration feels that this was the best way to bring a change to the school.
“In general, as an administrator, and I know Mr. Williams feels the same way, taking a strictly punitive approach of just like, ‘do this or else’, isn’t a great motivator,” Philips said. “You want a kid to have a stake in it. You also want to meet positivity with positivity.”
