GPA requirements for school incentives do students a disservice

Imagine you’re a student who always gets in trouble for always getting to school late. Your grades are dropping and you are not really listening to your teacher, causing you to stay out or in in-school suspension. Your parents are getting upset with you because they know that you can do better than what you are. It upsets you that they feel that way so you try to change and you start going to school on time. You get to school one day and hear on the announcements that the school is going to Skyzone for a school trip. You get all excited but the conditions are you have to attend all your classes, have a certain GPA and no referrals by the end of the month. You start to think about all of what you have done so you start to change your mindset and organize your school work and make a calendar to get everything done in time in order to go. As weeks go by your parents are proud to see what you have accomplished going to school on time and no referrals. All of your grades are getting better but you notice there’s one grade that just won’t change. You decide to go and talk to your teacher about it. When you go and she tells you that you haven’t done anything in class, especially the big projects you tell her that you’re trying to go to the incentive and there’s only a week left to have all the requirements. She explains to you that there’s no way you will raise your grade because you’re too late. You go and try to talk to the principal about it but he says those are the conditions and there’s no way they are making an exception. Now you have tried your hardest and your very best. You got everything but now you worked that hard and still didn’t get what you wanted. How does this make you feel?

Hazelwood Central school district has the same expectations if you want to join a field trip or a fun incentive. Now they have valid reasons for you not to be able to participate in an incentive. Number 1: No Referrals. I mean this makes sense and I agree because why would you be rewarded for having bad behavior or just not paying attention or listening to the teacher? Number 2: Good Attendance This also makes sense and I agree because you can’t get to class on time or you can skip class but you can be on time to the incentive if you can do that then you can make it on time. Number 3: GPA. Now I don’t really agree too much with this one. I mean you have the students that care and the ones that don’t. I just don’t think this should be a rule because there are students that try their hardest and they just don’t succeed to make their goal. I feel like they should be rewarded too because they tried their hardest. Some students simply just understand the class they’re in, but that doesn’t mean they should miss out. Just because  their grades are lower doesn’t mean you can tell the difference between who’s really trying and who’s not.

Now you’re in a tough situation. You did all of this. I mean tried your hardest to have everything accomplished. You decide to go back to your old ways by not coming to school anymore and/or showing up late, not turning in your work or doing it all and getting into trouble more and more again. The teacher whose class caused you not to go to the incentive notices your behavior and how you’re acting out. She tells you to stay after class so she can have a talk with you. She tells you that she knows you’re a good kid that works hard and gets stuff accomplished and she knows you really wanted to go to that incentive. Why would you risk yourself not going into another incentive cause there will be more. She mentions that you can get extra help when assignments are due. You can go tutoring, stay after school with teachers or come in for lunch. You can push yourself to do things but you have to put in the effort. The incentive may be a little much but you can do all three of those things.  Now weeks and you’re staying out of trouble getting extra help from teachers and always on time you feel proud of yourself your teachers and parents are proud of you and now you’re qualified to go to the next incentive

The meaning of the story means that the incentive caused the student to want to push themselves better because they wanted to do special things involving the school but they had to follow the requirements in order to go. Not only is it good just benefiting them it also leaves good records on their high school transcripts to get into college. It affects things like you graduating or even going to prom. Graduating is a big important thing in your life because you need a diploma to work a full time job. You should think about your choices you make in school because it’s going to affect your life choices in the future.