By JESSICA SIEFF
Niles Daily Star

As students at Ballard Elementary School take a break from the classroom to fill up with lunch, items like pizza and chocolate milk, they wait with great anticipation to find out if the weather is warm enough for outside recess – something they haven’t had in days.

Some of those students find out there will, indeed, be outside recess from a group of very special lunch table set up in what’s called the Ballard Bistro, where student who have been rewarded for good behavior are recognized.

Students like Jack Gundlock, who said he was respectful to a teacher, and Jalene Mosquera, who said she was responsible by completing all of her classwork.

The Ballard Bistro is just one of the rewards that students receive when they’re given a special ticket by teachers as part of a program called Positive Behavioral Support, which encourages good behavior from students and helps drive home the “Four Bs” of the school.

“Being respectful, being responsible, being safe and being a scholar,” Nicole Foley, a behavioral specialist at Ballard, explained Friday.

The program runs all year, but Foley said teachers try to make a special point of using the rewarded tickets around winter and spring breaks and at the start and end of school.

Students receive special tickets from their teachers when they’ve exhibited good behavior; cooperated with other classmates; completed classwork; or stayed orderly in hallways. They receive rewards such as a chance to have lunch at the Ballard Bistro, sit through a portion of the class at the teacher’s desk or receive extra gym time.

Tickets can also be awarded to classes as a whole, with rewards including free quiz passes or even a homework pass – which means principal Amy DeVos and assistant principal Zech Hoyt do that classroom’s homework for one night.

Foley said the students respond well to the program that is just another example of good kids doing good things.