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| ‘Student of the Month’ award honors well-rounded kids |
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| Education | |||
| Written by Aaron Cedeño | |||
| Wednesday, 02 December 2009 09:00 | |||
For the most part, Brian Biermann isn’t a huge fan of making phone calls on the job.  As principal of Louisburg Middle School, not all of them are pleasant. He knows when parents hear his voice on the other end of the line, their heart rate spikes just a bit. But when it comes to notifying parents that their child has been named Student of the Month? Well, he could make those calls all day long. “I have to tell them, ‘breathe, it’s okay,’” Biermann said, laughing. “This is a good news phone call. Probably 90-percent of these parents, they hold their breath thinking their kid is in trouble or hurt.” The Student of the Month Award was something Biermann brought with him to LMS, when he became principal before the 2007-2008 academic year. It started out as a way to build incentive for students to give their all in the classroom, he said, and in that regard it has been wildly successful. Winners are recognized at a monthly all-school assembly, where they are given a T-shirt, a certificate, and treated to lunch by Biermann at the end of the academic year. In less than three years, the program has already grown considerably. What began with one student, boy or girl, from each grade level has become two – a boy and a girl each. The award is given eight times during the course of the year, to six students each month. In 2009, Biermann made the decision to allow repeat selections, giving students already honored the chance to win again if it is merited. It would be easy to assume that the students with the best classroom performance are always the recipients, Biermann said, but that’s just not the case. In fact, there is no hard rubric for selection. Each month, the faculty of each grade level gathers to determine the next month’s honoree. Everything is considered, from classroom performance and work ethic to personal character and integrity. “This award allows us to recognize the well rounded kids, the ones exhibiting good character traits and responsibility,” Biermann explained. Given the esteem in which the student body holds it, the Student of the Month Award is achieving its desired result. Just look at a student like eighth-grader Capri Teague. Her brother, Canon, was a recipient two years ago while in the eighth grade himself. Ever since then, Capri said, she knew she wanted to find a way to meet that standard. Typically, secrecy is part of the fun. Parents aren’t supposed to let their children know of the pending honor until they appear on stage with them at the all-school ceremony. But while out to dinner with her one night, Capri’s mother’s phone rang. It was Biermann, and she was fairly certain she wasn’t in trouble. That could only mean one thing, and when she was officially named as one of November’s Students of the Month, she was understandably ecstatic. Attaining the award, she said, gave her another legitimate goal for which to strive in the classroom. “I felt like I wanted to get better grades,” Capri said. “I had ‘A’s’ last year, but I had a ‘B’ in math. I feel like it helped me push that B up to an A this year so I had straight A’s.” With no plans to stop giving the award in sight, that’s exactly what Biermann wants to hear. “We’ll continually tweak it, but I think it’s just too good of a thing to not have,” he said.
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