- January 15, 2025
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Teachers in 2025 are competing for their students’ attention against cellphones, the internet and a wide world of entertainment options.
Braden River Middle School Principal Kimberlain Zenon said when that attention battle was combined with a struggle to reacclimate to the classroom after COVID-19, there was a desperate need for some added motivation.
“I meet with my teachers on a yearly basis, and I saw a pretty much overall consensus on kids having no motivation after COVID,” Zenon said. “We needed to get the kids motivated, and I thought about it.”
She said the school already had a points-based reward system for reinforcing positive behavior, but that wasn’t making enough impact.
That’s when Zenon knew she and her staff had to try something different.
Braden River Middle had been using the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports system, a national program in which students can earn points for good behavior and then use the points at a school store, for time in a student lounge, or fun events.
For several years, the school also has employed the Jostens Renaissance Program, which rewards students with outdoor lunches and phone-use time for maintaining a 3.5 GPA or higher.
However, Zenon wanted to create a program that was equitable to all students and not based on innate ability or the discretion of a teacher or administrator handing out points.
That’s where Stride with Pride was born.
Stride with Pride was implemented in the 2022-23 school year as a way for students to be rewarded for staying on top of their work and avoiding disciplinary action.
If students turn in 100 percent of their assignments in a given quarter and does not receive in-school or out-of-school suspension, they receive a ticket.
Each quarter, students who have met the criteria can use their ticket to skip an elective period to play King’s Court, use their phones, or watch a movie.
The results have been positive.
Braden River Middle raised its school ranking from 61 percent in 2022-23 to 63 percent in 2023-24, leaving it just one percentage point short of being classified as an "A" school by the Florida Department of Education.
“We’re seeing better scores, better grades, and things are changing,” Zenon said.
Along with better grades and test scores, behavior has improved, too, Zenon said. Through two quarters last year, students had accumulated 837 referrals compared to 706 through the same period this school year.
While motivational programs have had a wide-reaching impact at Braden River Middle, that doesn’t necessarily work if some students feel they are being left behind.
One of the foremost issues that needed to be addressed this school year at Braden River Middle was literacy.
There are 54 students of the 799 at Braden River Middle who currently qualify as Tier 3 readers — meaning they are below grade-level standards.
That’s where assistant principal Tamara Cornwell came in.
Cornwell is new to Braden River Middle this year after serving as an assistant principal at several other middle schools in the region.
A unique aspect of Braden River Middle is its proximity to Braden River Elementary, which is a stone’s throw away.
“I knew that our Tier 3 students had to have a way to practice literacy, and the best way to practice is to read aloud,” Cornwell said. “It builds fluency, literacy and all the kumbaya things that are needed in reading. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, here we have the littles over there on that side, and our students are older and bigger. What a great opportunity for them to go over and read to kindergarteners through second graders.’”
Cornwell and Braden River Middle reading coach Tasheta Riley identified 19 of the Tier 3 literacy students who had an elective period in the timeframe that worked best for Braden River Elementary to host a read-aloud.
Though it’s too soon to measure results from a testing standpoint — the second of three waves of progress monitoring testing just took place on Jan. 14 — it’s been easy for Cornwell and Riley to see a drastic shift in attitude.
“It’s more tailored toward, ‘Hey you might be counted as struggling at this level, but there is a level that you can be deemed as important, independent and in control,” said Riley, who added that she is familiar with the struggle of reading because she was forced to miss classes due to an illness growing up. “You’re being a leader (at the elementary school). That gives them that confidence and that ownership to say, ‘Hey, I might be below grade level at Grade 7, but I am still important, I can still contribute, and I have the ability to read to younger kids. I can do something, and I can start from somewhere.’”
Braden River Elementary handpicks the books to be read, and Tier 3 students at Braden River Middle practice reading them. They work on tone, pitch, sentence flow, and questions to encourage discussion with the elementary school students.
Some students weren’t keen on the idea of missing out on their physical education period, Cornwell said, but it didn’t take long for that fear of missing out to be replaced by excitement for reading.
“The kids love it,” Cornwell said. “One child, who really wasn’t motivated to be in school, said to me, ‘This is the best day I’ve ever had in class.’ One day he got in trouble a little bit and couldn’t go and he said, ‘I’m going to be good so I can keep going,’ and he has. It helped him maintain his behavior. You never know the little things that can spread the roots.”
Cornwell said that students who have participated in Panther Tales will be measured against other Tier 3 readers who didn’t in upcoming testing, and if there’s a measurable difference, the program could be expanded.
There is still a segment of Braden River Middle students — Zenon estimated it to be roughly 10 percent — that hasn’t responded as well to the school’s encouragement.
Those students who are falling behind will be targeted with small-group or one-on-one check-ins with administrators so that individualized plans can be put into place to get them back on track.
“We’ve done a lot of school-wide things, but when it comes to the kids who aren’t responding, it comes down to individualized treatment,” Zenon said. “We want to individually motivate them and encourage them. I think that’s the next level of it.”
