Bryson ISD to continue new incentives

Bryson ISD implemented a new attendance incentive program for the 2015-16 school year and saw some improvements.

“Overall, it helped more at the elementary level than it did at the secondary level,” said Principal Eric Wilson. “We’re not going to let one year of data say, yes, it’s a success or that it was a complete failure. We’re going to continue to monitor it.”

Wilson reported that of the elementary classes, there were four with attendance of more than 97 percent.

“Overall it was 96.2 percent. Our goal as a district is 98 percent so we’re a little more than one percentage point from that,” he said. “It’s pretty much in line where we were last year. We’ll try it again next year. We’re looking for ways to give kids some incentive to be here. It’s today’s times and we’ve got to cater to them to get here.”

The program offered fun times for students with perfect attendance — perfect attendance being students were there for the official attendance time of 11:40 a.m. each school day.

There were separate awards for spring and fall semesters and a third award for the entire year.

Superintendent David Stout said eight students from prekindergarten through second grade were awarded with a trip to Legoland in Grapevine.

Twelve students in third through fifth grade got a trip to Medieval Times.

For sixth through 12th grade, 31 students got a trip to Six Flags. Those were the year-end trips.

To read the complete article, see the July 1 edition of the Herald-Gazette.