Casual Incentive Winners

Winners of the Casual Incentives program at Port Allegany High School are pictured with their teachers (front row, left to right) Ethan Edgreen, Imani Klein, Reece Kittilson, Kristen Hamilton, Clark Barber; (row 2) Mr. Mike Bodamer, Mr. Paul Wallace, Lorelei Smith, Bladen Yeager, Shaylee Caulkins, Evie Russell, Tyler Lashway, Dylan Williams, Kennedy Dates, Calvin Burleson, Sydney Fitzimmons, Teagen Miller, Mrs. Lisa VanGorden, Mrs. Amanda Stuckey, Mr. Matt Lawton; (row 3) Mr. Justin Bienkowski, David Talkington, Marianna Seefeldt, Hannah Lathrop, Brandon McCaslin, Daniel Fernstrom, Ryan McNeil; (row 4) Gabriella Goodwill, Kayla Sprankle, Ronee Unverdorben, Lauren Dynda, Katherine Ernst, Devin Gustin, Jamie Cousin, Emily Watson, Jordan Kiser; (row 5) Marcus Murphy, Josh Mealy, Autumn Freer, Caroline Wise, Brenita Yentzer, Chelsey Higley, Madison Barker, Daniel Stuckey, Kara Safford and Nina Barber. 

CASUAL INCENTIVES PROGRAM - A PSSA committee was formed at Port Allegany High School after the seventh and eighth grade students had such a low opinion of themselves due to the negative press about AYP.  The committee wanted a way to take the negative pressure of seventh and eighth grade PSSA testing and turn it into something positive.  They came up with the following: 1.  Homerooms were divided into houses based upon the popular Harry Potter series.  Last year it worked out that seventh graders were in Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, and eighth grade was Ravenclaw and Slytherin.  2.  House points were awarded when students showed acts of kindness, bravery or correctly answered PSSA style questions in their classes.  A running daily score was posted outside Mr. Lawton's room.  3.  A game of "Minute to Quiddich" was held the day before the PSSA's with students and staff from each house participating in the games.   4.  Students voted on which teacher at Hogwarts was most accurately represented by a teacher from Port Allegany High School.  5.  Teachers donated food and drinks during the testing time of PSSA's for the students.  6.  Incentives were to be awarded based upon the students who raised their score the most from the previous year's PSSA score. 

In order to generate money for the incentives, Casual Friday was instituted (in January) on the day following payday.  STAFF then donated a minimum of $5 to wear jeans to work that day.  many staff members participated:  administration, secretarial, teachers, cafeteria workers, custodians and student aides.   Some chose to donate but not dress down.

Students in grades 8 were asked what types of incentives they were interested in and the following is a list that was generated through the ideas gathered from those students:  i-pad, Oyua Gaming system and extra controller, BEATS headphone set, two Kindle readers with a $25 Kindle gift certificate, two i-home wireless speakers, one blue, one black; there were two gift certificates in the amount of $25 for Sheetz, Fox's, Mick's Diner, and Port Freeze; three $45 gift certificates for Carmike Theaters and three $50 gift certificates for PAHS Yearbooks. 

There were also Visa gift cards - one in the amount of $100; two for $50 and 12 for $25.  There were also five fall and winter season sports passes for two people and four music (band and choral) Pass PORTs to events.  Mr. Doug Dickerson's wood shop class designed and built a "House Cup" from wood, to be awarded to the "house" that earned the most points. 

On April 8, the better part of two periods was spent competing in the Minute to Quiddich games.  Bill and Jeanette Burleson and Melissa Smoker donated their time to help make the event a success by setting up and judging the different games.  Brianna Bizzaro served as announcer during the competition.  April 9-11 was the first round of testing.  On April 22, the school participated in "dress as your favorite Harry Potter character" day.  That was followed by the second round of testing from April 23-25.  Hufflepuff won the "House Cup". 

Over the summer, scores from 2012-2013 PSSA's were compared to scores from 2011-2012 in Math and Reading only.  The students that made the most improvement in their scores in each test then picked first from the incentives.  Students worked extremely hard when taking the tests and over 45 received an incentive on Wednesday, September 4.