Armand Pires, Superintendent
45 Holliston St.
Medway, MA 02053
Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019
Media Contact: Benjamin Paulin
Phone: 781-428-3299
Email: ben@jgpr.net
Medway Middle School Rewarding Student Behavior Through New Positive Office Referral Program
MEDWAY — Superintendent Armand Pires is pleased to announce that starting this year, students at Medway Middle School will receive special recognition through the new Positive Office Referral program.
Positive office referrals are a chance for any staff member to “write up” a student when they are spotted demonstrating the school’s core values of “responsibility, respect and rising above.”
Principal Craig Juelis said he has received positive referrals from classroom teachers, teachers supervising other grades at lunch or recess, and even from fellow students.
“In too many cases, we don’t celebrate the good deeds that are happening each day in our building,” Principal Juelis said. “This provides us with an opportunity to promote and call out the many positive things that our students are doing each day that may have gone unnoticed.”
Juelis said he first learned of the Positive Office Referral program several years ago while listening to Beth Houf, a middle school principal from Missouri, during a leadership conference.
As part of the referral program, students receive a certificate that identifies the core value they lived up to and the teacher’s description of how the student earned the recognition.
Students have received referrals for moving their lockers to help a classmate, offering a student a pencil case who didn’t have one, making consistent improvements in their academic and behavioral performance, helping show new students around the building in their first few days, working through particularly difficult academic work, and more.
In some cases, staff members will inform the student they are receiving a positive referral, while other times students are surprised by the recognition when called to Juelis’ office.
Juelis said the school also reaches out to parents to share the student’s achievement.
“Parents or guardians are very excited to hear this good news from the school,” Juelis said. “It is very important that families receive regular communication from the school, especially when their student has done something to earn this kind of positive recognition.”
Since the program began in September, referrals have been given out weekly and more than two dozen have been rewarded so far.
As a way to further celebrate positive behavior in the school, Juelis said last year he revised a past practice of celebrating noteworthy staff deeds with a program called “staff shouts.”
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