For students at Brookhaven Elementary School, being sent to theprincipal’s office may not be such a bad thing now.

While bad behavior may still warrant a trip to the office, theschool recently became the first in Mississippi to begin using anationally acclaimed program that rewards students for goodbehavior. The Treasure Tower Reward Program has been at the schoolfor several months, thanks to the efforts of Assistant PrincipalDelores Gearing.

“The only ones I was used to seeing on a weekly basis were the oneswho were misbehaving and I felt this needed to change,” Gearingsaid. “I wanted to see the smiling faces and get to know thestudents better who were not misbehaving.”

After considerable research, Gearing said she decided on theTreasure Tower Reward Program and sought the help of the school’sParent Teacher Association to bring it to BES. The PTA funded theprogram and supplies the machine with the reward toys andtrinkets.

The Treasure Tower is a toy dispensing machine similar to thosefound at the entrances and exits of many retail stores. However, itoffers eight different selections.

The names of students who behave during the course of a week areadded to a box. Five names from each homeroom class are drawnrandomly each Friday.

The chosen students are presented with a token and sent toGearing’s office to claim their prize.

“They work harder now not to misbehave and follow the rules, so ithas slowed down the flow of students coming to my office (fordisciplinary reasons),” Gearing said. “It’s encouraging them toobey the rules set down by their teachers, and hopefully to becomebetter citizens.”

One of the refreshing surprises discovered by the program is thatmany of the students choose to give their prizes to others, shesaid.

Three of five third grade students in one class Friday had plansfor their prizes.

Destany Davis used her token to claim a pair of sticky hands thatshe intended to give a younger cousin.

“Because it’s really sticky, I was going to give it to my cousin.He loves sticky stuff like this,” she said.

Alice Ann Walker chose a silver necklace for her mother.

Hannah Moore proved the most devious in her selection, however. Sheintended to use her prize to play on prank on her father.

“I got the sticky eyeball because my dad’s an eye doctor,” saidMoore, who was still working out the details of her prank andwasn’t ready to elaborate.

The program was only initiated approximately two months ago,Gearing said, but has already become popular among thestudents.

“I can already tell the difference by the number of students cominginto my office on teacher referrals,” Gearing said. “But the rewardto me is to see the smiles on the faces of the students who haveworked hard to obey the rules.”