HPS touts Pony Pride at Havre Chamber meeting

A group of Havre Public School faculty, staff and students spoke at the Havre Area Chamber of Commerce's Annual Meeting about the district's Pony Pride Initiative.

Pony Pride is the local version of the Montana Behavioral Initiative. MBI programs are meant to encourage positive standards of behavior among students in a school setting, district Assistant Superintendent Craig Mueller said.

The big idea behind MBIs, Mueller said, is to see the academic gains that come from positive behavior and positive enforcement of the rules.

"Rather than the rules being punitive, they support positive behaviors in a classroom setting," Muller said.

Havre schools have been woking with the Chamber to promote the initiative and encouraging businesses to display the Pony Print, an image of a blue horseshoe with the words "safe, respectful, responsible and educated" written on it.

Prints of the logo are displayed in local businesses and can be found on T-shirts and stickers.

Mueller said the goal is to encourage students to display the positive behaviors not only inside the classroom but also outside the classroom setting.

Highland Park Early Primary School Principal Mark Irvine said his school is "the tip of the sword" when it comes to the initiative.

The school, he said, works to encourage students to be pepared, respect themselves and others, interact appropriately and move in a safe manner. Taken together the four behaviors are known as BRIM.

Irvin aid BRIM is using four behaviors that they ingrain in students in classrooms, the school's hallway and on the playground.

Hoof prints are painted on the floor of the school's hallways, showing in which direction students should walk and they are encouraged to keep their hands to themselves and be respectful.

Students are also encouraged to give back as part of the MBI, Irvin said.

High school students also come to the school and teach the youngsters about the four principles of Pony Pride.

Lincoln-McKinley Primary School third-grade teacher Kelsey Ward said BRIM continues to be tonight when the students move up to her school.

"It's just something we teach and something we preach all the time," Ward said.

Lincoln-McKinley Principal Holly Bitz said each month the school tries to find ways to celebrate good behavior and instill Pony Pride principles in a way that celebrates good behavior and the students are doing the best they can living up to the BRIM principles and when they do that it is acknowledged.

Lincoln-McKinley, she said, also tries to get students to give back to the community, something done through food drives, and this year by taking part in the Polar Plunge, where students raised $400 for the Special Olympics in November.

At Sunnyside Intermediate School, principal Carmen Lunak said, students are in years of transition.

Students want to feel like they are part of the larger community, which they were able to do recently at the Blue Pony Trade Fair, which brought in nearly $3,000 in donations for the Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line and the Hi-Line Sletten Cancer Center, she said.

Sunnyside student Tyley Hemmer, 10, told the audience at the luncheon about how, at her school, students are taught to be respectful, responsible, safe and educated.

People must try and live up to those principles in order to be good citizens, she said.

Hemmer said Sunnyside students think of each of those principles differently. Respect, she said, is more than merely listening to teachers.

"I think of it as showing someone you care about compassion, like when my sister wrote kind and encouraging letters to someone who has felt left out or picked on," Hemmer said.

Grace Crantz, 14, said she along with other students from the Have Middle School and Havre High School recently attended a conference in Great Falls with other MBI teams from districts around the state.

She said that at the conference they took part in group activities.

Crantz said she and classmate Trenton Maloughney also took part in service projects.

She said that she has learned that everyone has a different role to play in the community and when people work together they get things done faster.

Maloughney said that, after the conference, he and other students decided to make Blue Pony T-shirts to make everyone feel like they have a place in the community.

Taylor Gopher, 17, who is a junior and president of the MBI club, said that among the activities his school does to promote the four Blue Pony principles is hold a quarterly assembly where short, student-made videos on one of the four principles are shown.

At their first assembly, the theme of the video was respect, and the second assembly Jan. 31 will center on safety.

Blue Pony tickets are also sometimes given out to students for gift cards and drawings at quarterly assemblies.

Middle school Vice Principal Jeremiah Nitz praised the students who spoke at the Chamber meeting as the "next great leaders of Havre Montana."

He added that Pony Pride will continue beyond this school year.

"This is not a one-shot deal," he said. "This is something that is going to stay with us for many years to come."