It’s the day you’ve been waiting for your entire school career, the day when your name is finally called and you are to step up and receive the reward for all your hard work you put into school. Your name is announced, and you proudly take the packet that is now in your grasp. You look into the small plastic bag, eagerness in your eyes. Alas, what? No open lunches? No exam exemptions? What is this?

For those of you who have gone through this scenario, you’re not alone. Many Renaissance cardholders have, at one point, thought the same thing. The rewards of working hard and earning good grades are just not the same as last year or the year before.

“Basically, I could never get an ‘A’ in math, so I always had the exam exemption to fall back on,” junior Jessica Kraft said. “If there were better rewards this year, maybe people would try harder.”

“The incentives aren’t that good, so it doesn’t give me that much of a reason to try as hard,” junior Grace Winner said.

While most of us tend to focus on the negatives of the changes made to Renaissance, which are loss of exam exemptions and loss of open lunches, there are also many positive changes made for the Renaissance card recipients. The addition of the blue card, which is a 2.67-2.99 GPA, allowed the Renaissance cardholders to open their arms to a new group and welcome more people in.

“I would love to get everyone involved,” Mrs. Eckman, Renaissance Advisor said.

Other positive changes included raising the homework passes, in which gold receives four, silver receives three, red receives two, and blue receives one.

This year’s attendance is also handled differently. What was a “Perfect Attendance” card, has now been changed to “Excellent Attendance”, which is based on each nine weeks. For each nine weeks, a student is evaluated on attendance, which allows planned absences (up to five per year), school excused or school-related absences. For those who qualify, special drawings will be held throughout the year. These students also recieve one homework pass for each nine weeks, and they have excellent attendance.

Renaissance isn’t just everything we see in the assemblies either. Many things are done behind the scenes in order to produce the best outcome possible. Hard at work are 20 dilligent students, otherwise known as the Renaissance board. With four seniors, two juniors and 14 sophmores, Mrs. Eckman is in heaven.

“I’m really happy with the turnout and participation of board members,” Mrs. Eckman said.

The Renaissance board works hard preparing the monthly incentives, which usually happens to be candy or folders preparing for assemblies and bagging up everything received in the Renasissance bags. Adult Board members fill out certificates and Mrs. Eckman prints off cards and keeps a running total of disciplinary actions.

Mrs. Eckman is always looking for new board members. If you are interested, please contact her in, room 205 (computer lab)

Mrs. Eckman is also trying to come up with more incetives to add to the list.

“I’m trying hard to work with cristy’s pizza to get every card holder a personal pan pizza,” Mrs. Eckman said.

Any suggestions for incentives for Renaissance? Write your idea down, place it in a sealed envelope and drop it off in room 205, or room 201(Renaissance room).

So next time you open your Renissance packet and begin to gripe about what we don’t have anymore, take a minute and remember the words of senior Travis Lester.

“The Renaissance program is a great way to encourage students to strive and work hard in the classroom. It motivates us to work hard so we can receive special privileges, such as getting in to athletic events for free, and homework passes.”