Riverside Brookfield High School starts another year with the Hero System. But for the new school year, the Hero System has some new additions.

Last school year, the Hero System was introduced and enforced at RBHS. The Hero System is a package the district purchased last year from a company of the same name, formerly called Plasco. Although the positive side of Hero was included in the original purchase, the school did not roll out the entire program all at once.

“We wanted to make sure before we rolled this plan out that the new positive behavior supports and incentives were in place,” Assistant Principal for Student Affairs David Mannon said.

The new incentives range across a multitude of different items. Some of the items a student could get, in no particular order, are movie tickets, fast passes for the lunch lines, free Homecoming and Prom tickets, parking passes, and even a VIP Homecoming experience.

Even though Mannon is sure students will be invested in the new additions to the Hero system, will the students and teachers of Riverside Brookfield really use the Hero points?

When asking students what they thought of the new additions to the Hero system, most replied with either a neutral or negative response. Students either did not care about the additions to the Hero system, or they did not see a reason to include the Hero Points.

“If you want to reward kids for anything, reward them for things that count, like academics, not just basic niceties like holding the door for someone. If students haven’t figured out how to be decent human beings yet, they probably won’t ever, and even if they do, it won’t be through earning 50 Hero points and a gift card to Starbucks,” said Junior Ben Schulte.

When interviewing teachers and asking them for their opinions on the Hero system, most had a neutral point of view. The majority of the teachers believed that the Hero attendance system would have a bigger effect on the students than the new incentives.

“When students reach the age that they are when they are in high school, positive reinforcement really has a limited effect…  If somebody truly does say, ‘Well, I’m gonna act better because I might get a reward at the end of the day,’ that’s great, but is it really changing their motivation for their behavior? Not really. They’re doing it for an external reward,” said English teacher Thomas Fuller.

Over time, there could be changes to the rewards offered by the Hero System.