A couple years back, wooden nickels were passed around to students. They had the same purpose as the new brickhouse cards. The catch? The nickels were supposed to return back to teachers and when they weren’t, more had to be made.
“They cost too much to make, and when the teachers gave them out, students didn’t return them and it just became an extra cost,” associate principal Dustin Jamison said, “They just weren’t sustainable.”

This year, Brickhouse cards were implemented for staff to give to students. Associate principal Dustin Jameson is making sure students at North are feeling appreciated for spreading kind gestures in the school environment.

“They were kind of found as a way to reward positive behaviour for students, we felt like there were a lot of good kids doing a lot of good things,” associate principal Dustin Jamison said, “We just wanted to recognize and reward them with something.”

If you haven’t noticed, there are black boxes outside of the lunchroom where a student can submit their cards to enter the raffles for the variety of prizes. Each raffle takes about 2 weeks and the prizes change and are brought to students by the PBIS team.

“There’s an organization called PBIS which is the Positive Behavior Intervention Support team,” Ewers said, “It’s basically like a club, mostly with a bunch of teachers…but we’re wanting to get some students involved in it so there’s student [input] on what rewards are and what activities we can do.”

Sophomore Daniela Galvan Marin was one of the raffle winners and is one of the many ELL students at SM North.

“Se siente bien estar recompensada porque así los [estudiantes] se motivan para hacer cosas buenas”, Daniela Galvan Marin said,“De esa manera nosotros los estudiantes nos inclinamos más por hacer buenos actos y ganar premios.

English translation: “It feels good to be rewarded because this way [students] can feel more motivated to do a good act,” Daniela Galvan Marin said, “This way we can be inclined to do a positive act and win rewards.”

Daniela Galvan Marin was given a brickhouse card by her ELL teacher Heather Hayden. She then entered and won the raffle for a Cinemark gift card and pizza for her positive behavior.
The goal of these cards is to promote students to do the right thing at SMN. Many students already have a huge impact on the positivity of the student body and these cards will allow them to receive acknowledgement.

“The biggest goal is to promote positive behaviors doing the right thing,” Ewers said, “And that could be from turning assignments in on time to being on time to class to giving us information for you know when we need it, like resolving a conflict.”