You may be surprised to learn what students are willing to do in order to earn tickets. Yes, tickets. Contrary to your belief, these are not traffic offense tickets. They happen to be tickets for the Project Rise drawing at the end of the school year.

Project Rise is a program designed to encourage students to produce a higher school attendance percentage. Currently, Mrs. James is raising money to buy the incentives for the program. As of now, she has $900 in pledges, but is shooting for $2500. With these donations, she plans to purchase three laptops, two digital cameras, three iPods, a Wii, and visa cash cards.

How, you ask, do I get in the drawing for these prizes? All you have to do is be at school. If you have no absences for the first quarter, your name gets put into the drawing three times. Miss one day of school and you receive two tickets, and two days absent earns you one ticket. These regulations also apply for each of the following quarters.

In case you weren’t aware, Project Rise gave away a 4-wheeler to one lucky student for the 2008-09 school year. According to the percentage of attendance for last year, the 4-wheeler as an incentive did increase our attendance levels by .2%.

In order to boost student participation, the President’s Council suggested that the school give away several smaller, yet significant prices rather than one big prize. This allows more than one student to take home an incentive and have bragging rights for the upcoming year.

Mrs. James revealed “At times a student will check out at 2:30p.m. This costs the students an all day absence because the school is required to count an absence for even 15 minutes absent from a block.” So, if you want to be in the running for a chance to win these amazing prizes, keep your attendance level up and earn them tickets!