It's not everyday that Reiffton students are given permission to be so bold to call their principals "Smurf" or "Sonic" and laugh as they point at their hair, but principal Dr. Greg Fries and assistant principal Mr. Joe Alcaro couldn't have been happier to be the center of their 5th and 6th graders' jokes today as they walked around Reiffton after having their hair spray painted Exeter blue this morning. It was all part of a school-wide challenge for students to earn 600 Character COWnts good-behavior tickets over a 4 week period. Reiffton students being the competitive and well-behaved bunch that they are not only met their principals' goal of 600 tickets in 4 weeks--they blew past it by earning an additional 400 on top of it!

"We've been averaging about 75 tickets a week," said Mr. Alcaro. "We wanted to up the ante, and we were so excited to see that they earned over 1,000!"

Dr. Fries said that the challenge truly created a fun atmosphere at the school over the past few weeks. "From the very beginning of the challenge, they were excited that we were willing to dye our hair blue. Every time I walked through the hallways or entered the cafeteria students came up to me to let me know how excited they would be to see me with blue hair. Several even mentioned that it looks better than my normal gray hair."

The Character COWnts program, which is now in its 9th year at Reiffton, is meant to build upon the pro-social skills taught in the homes of our students and in our elementary schools. The program focuses on the 3C's: caring, cooperation and citizenship, and was designed specifically to meet the needs of the students at Reiffton.

Although he's glad the hair dye that was used today was temporary, Dr. Fries said that he hopes the lessons learned from the challenge are more permanent. "We are extremely lucky to have such an outstanding group of students at Reiffton. Their success with this challenge demonstrates their willingness to see things from different perspectives and put the needs and feelings of others first."