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To make sure her students stay on the right track, Principal Stephanie Andrewlevich is trying a new strategy — cash. She promised the eighth-grade class at Mitchell Elementary in southwest Philadelphia that she would give each of them $100 at graduation if they all make it through the school year without any physical fights, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
About 80 percent of students at Mitchell, a K-8 school, live in poverty, and many live in violent neighborhoods. But Andrewlevich, in her third year as principal, wanted her students to get the message that they don’t have to solve problems through fighting.
“I wanted to challenge them to be what their families see in them, what we know they are,” Andrewlevich told the Inquirer. “They have a choice — to become the violence they see in their day-to-day lives, or to be peaceful models for our school and our community.”
Read the full article about the Philadelphia school paying kids not to fight by Laura Fay at The 74.