MEMPHIS, Tenn. — One middle school said they were trying to send the message that good conduct equaled a good time.
It came amid growing concerns about fights in schools.
“We’ve been provoked,” said Raleigh-Egypt Middle School sixth grader Takia Horton.
“Many times,” added sixth-grade classmate Tamar Williams.
But neither Horton, Williams nor the rest of their 51-member “team” ever raised a fist.
“We look up to, like, the big kids, but when we see them fighting, we want to make a difference,” Williams said.
A couple weeks ago, a video surfaced of a vicious fight at Raleigh-Egypt High School.
Afterward, Raleigh-Egypt Middle School implemented a program to prevent fights like that.
It was called “Fight Free.”
“The first idea was, well, we made it for 20 days. Can we take them somewhere nice? Then, it was 40 days. Then it was, really, the St. Louis trip came up,” said Principal Ronnie Mackin.
It was Mackin’s first year at Raleigh-Egypt.
He and his teachers launched the program this year.
They divided the students into teams.
The objective was to go the longest number of days without a fight.
The school told WREG there were incentives along the way, like out-of-uniform days and ice cream parties.
Horton and Williams’s team was at nearly 170 consecutive days.
“We learned to apologize for our mistakes without being told to now, which is pretty much maturing,” Horton said.
Teachers like Rhonda Johnson did a lot of mediation and conflict management.
“The number one thing that they say is we need to apologize to each other,” Johnson said.
As of now, the staff feels the program was paying off.
In fact, a field trip to St. Louis was planned, and Horton and Williams’s teams get to go.
They’ll go to the Arch, the St. Louis Courthouse, and, of course, Six Flags.
The girls are scheduled to leave early Thursday morning.
“We do have our things that’s going on, and we’re trying to fix it the best we can, but we’ve got a lot of kids that are really good,” Mackin said.
Mackin added that he hoped to expand the trip next year with more kids, as more students succeed at being fight free.