Bolivar Middle School’s innovative approach to rewarding its students!

What do reading, a limo, and middle school students have in common?  They are all part of the Bolivar Middle School Limo Lunch Race. Bolivar Middle School has had the Scholastic Reading Counts! program for many years but did not integrate it fully in their independent reading program. Teachers didn't really know how to use it, books weren't labeled, and students weren't encouraged to read Scholastic Reading Counts! books.

Then, an idea was born...what if we had a Limo Lunch Race where students would read to earn one of the 60 slots on a limo lunch ride? Four years ago the idea was introduced in the communication arts classes. Today, its rules are simple: read a Scholastic Reading Counts! book, ANY Reading Counts! book, then take and pass the book quiz.

The "standings" are posted at the end of each quarter and hung outside of the library door. The list has two specific stats; Number of Books Read, which is compiled from the Reading Report Card report, and Number of Words Read, which is hand tallied through Reading Report Card. At the end of each quarter, individual students’ Reading Report Cards are printed. The Library staff enter information into an Excel spreadsheet -just four columns: Names (last name then first name)/grade/Number of Books/Number of Words. We then sort by "Number of Words Read" in descending order for the top students in the Number of Words category and then we do another sort by Number of Books in descending order for "Number of Books Read". We want to acknowledge number “Number of Words” because we want to encourage students that read for some time on "fatter" books and also, the number of words just "blow" the kids’ minds.

The top 30 students in each category are highlighted. We always highlight the Number of Books list first. Then we go through the Number of Words list, skipping those that are already highlighted on the Number of Books list. At the beginning of a new quarter, the library alcove is always bulging with students to see where they fall on the list.  Since the list has every student listed, they can see where they fall in conjunction with the leaders-even those who have blanks by their names. We often hear friends encouraging them to get on board and read. We keep reminding students that anything can happen, and that if they REALLY want to be in the Limo, they have to spend time reading.

At the end of the year, we hire 2 SUV limos to come to our school for 2 hours.  They pull up in front of our circular drive just about lunch time and the two liveried limo drivers get out and open the door. The limo company has been great in making the students feel special.

We call the first 30 students from class (15 for each limo with a school chaperone in the front with the driver). The limo company has sodas on ice for us in the limo. We have preordered lunches at a local restaurant. Off the two limos go...we tour the town, the kids play the radio, the DVD (a pre-selected DVD is already in place in case they find the DVD buttons), the sun roof gets opened and shut, and the students are in awe. We stop by the mayor's office and all pile out.  He congratulates them. He's even allowed us to sit in the city alderman's chairs in the Council Room. We take off from there and go to the School Superintendent's Office, where we pile out again and he congratulates the students and hands out certificates. We then head for the center of town (our town is a southern town built around a square with the County Courthouse in the center) where we stop traffic (pre-arranged with the Police Department) and pile out once again to run into the pizza store to get our individual pizzas. We hop back into the limo and drive as the kids eat (peaceful quiet) and we end up at the city park, where we jump out, and take pictures.

Then back into the limos we go and we are off to our final destination: school. As we pull up, our friends are at lunch and there are comments like "If I would have known, I would have read more". We then call the next 30 students and off we go with a repeat performance. At our awards assembly at the end of the year, we give each student that went on the Limo Lunch an 8x10 picture collage of the limo day events. 

To promote the Limo Lunch Race, each year we show students pictures and have testimonies, we go into classrooms, we make announcements over the intercom. The Limo Lunch fame has spread to other buildings; for example, the new sixth graders’ first question this year was "How do we get on the limo?" This is our fourth year of the Limo Lunch Race, sponsored by a grant through a local Educational Foundation.

Reading has become more of a priority at our school. All teachers are trained on how to use SRI and Scholastic Reading Counts! reports. Parents look for the limos on the Square now. Our funding comes from a local grant program-Bolivar Educational Advancement Foundation. The Majestic Limo of Springfield gives us a discount and doesn’t start the meter rolling until they get to the school and we are loaded. The businesses, Breadeaux Pizza in Bolivar and May’s Station, help us with the pizzas and sodas. We also collect ink cartridges and Boxtops for Education to help fund the extras.

We have more than 80% of our student body actively participating on the Limo Lunch Race without teachers forcing students to read. Scholastic Reading Counts! works wonders at Bolivar Middle School, and I certainly recommend it as the basis for any successful reward-giving program.

Jan Powell
Bolivar Middle School, Bolivar, MO