T-shirts show they ‘Take Pride’

Last year at Dawson-Bryant Middle School, principal Rick Roach wanted to start something to help encourage his students.

He said the school has always promoted a positive behavior reward system.

“However, it seemed like sometimes kids felt like they were overlooked for their achievements,” he said, adding the staff decided that they wanted the motto for their middle school to be ‘Take Pride.” “We wanted all students to take pride in whatever they could find to take pride in, whether it be in school or out of school. Students could take pride for good grades, excellent attendance, positive behavior, excelling in sports or extra-curricular activities outside of the school day.”

Roach said that last year, the opportunity for students to get recognized for taking pride was limitless as the school had students that would take it upon themselves to clean up the gym after a game or if students found money at school, they turned it in to the office.

Staff would submit a reason for wanting to recognize a student early in the week and then on Fridays, the chosen student was presented with a Coal Grove shirt that reads “Take Pride” on the back of it.

This year, the school has already recognized two different students.

The first student was nominated by seventh grade Language Arts teacher Shawn Doyle, after he noticed a student that had dropped all of their belongings they were carrying between classes.

Seventh grader Matti Hapney, without hesitation, stopped and helped the student gather everything up so they would not be late to class. Doyle felt that this small act of kindness was what “Take Pride” is all about.

“During the second week of school I had received emails from multiple staff members talking about this next student,” Roach said. “I kept hearing how polite and courteous this student is to teachers and staff. Everyone kept talking about he is always willing to help other students in his class when they need help. That’s when I decided that we needed to recognize sixth grade student, Logan Molenda.”

Every week, Dawson-Bryant Middle School will recognize a student or students present them with a shirt so they can wear it and show everyone that at Dawson-Bryant Middle School they “Take Pride”.