10 Incentives That High School Students Will Actually Want

These are fairly obvious examples of incentives that the government or industry puts into place to incentivize us to participate in something. Some are less obvious. 

You buy a house based on many factors. Some neighborhoods offer sidewalks and good schools. Some offer clubhouses and pools! These are incentives to buy a house in that area. 

Notice all of the things above are things you would likely do in some form or fashion anyway without the incentive. You gotta eat. You gotta shop. You gotta have a place to live. But those incentives inspire motivation to do so sooner and build brand loyalty.

So how does this apply to high schoolers? As students age, motivation and engagement with school is a negative linear line from K-12. By the time your students reach you, they can be fairly disinterested in the school. 

They still need school. 

So they are there and will participate on varying levels. But you know that deeper learning isn’t possible without engagement. Notice the parallels between the situation that governments and industry saw above, they had products and services that were in need but also saw that they must incentivize in order to get peak participation. 

We need to apply this logic to schools as well. It isn’t enough that they have to be there. We need to do more to make them want to be there. 

What Are Incentives and Why Are They Important?

An incentive is anything that motivates or encourages one to do something. Sometimes it's for products and services that a company wishes to sell at a higher volume. Sometimes it’s to promote a government initiative. Sometimes it's for our own health. 

Incentives are wildly successful at accelerating programs that need a boost. Educators would like to teach rooms full of self-motivated, eagerness to learn, ready to succeed students. 

Considering how many advertisements you see with “deals”, “discounts”, or “coupons” it would appear that businesses feel like incentive programs don’t just work, they are necessary for business. 

The government offers tax breaks on things they want us to buy more of. They offer cash for programs they want to see succeed like my district offering a small cash bonus for teachers to get their covid vaccine. It would seem that the government values incentives just as much as business. 

Educators should value incentives as well. We need to reach the unreachable. We need to stimulate the unmotivated. We need to push those who do barely enough. 

We need to provide a carrot for the high achievers to go above and beyond what they thought they could do. We need to utilize incentives with our students. 

Like most educators, I was a fairly solid student. But that said, when I was young I don’t recall being much of an avid reader. Until I got to around 6th grade and my school started using Accelerated Reader to incentivize reading. 

I was all-in on earning those points. 

I went from barely reading to being on the school’s leaderboard for AR points. That minor competition had a huge impact on my life as I credit a lot of my professional accomplishments to reading. It became a habit, I read some every day now and have for years. 

Would that have happened without the incentive when I was young? Maybe, maybe not.  But those AR points gave me the motivation to create the habit early. 

Let’s take a look at some easy incentive programs you can use for high schoolers who may need some motivation. 

Incentives that Work

1. Parking

Driving is a big deal for high school students. Do you want a program to take off or disruptive behavior to improve? Tie parking to it or preferred parking to it.

2. Dress Code Break

An easy incentive for all students to earn is for you to remove a feature of the dress code for a day or a week. Consider ideas like jeans day, pajama day, hat day, or more fun themes like 80s day or cowboy day.

3. Homework Passes

Allow students to earn tickets they can turn in to exempt them from a formative assignment. Be sure to tie an academic goal to this one.

4. Finals Exemptions

Want effort on state tests? Exempt students from individual class exams if they meet benchmarks on your state test.

5. School News

If your school doesn’t run a morning news program, start one. This is a great way to instill project-based learning, and career exploration, and help you communicate with your school every day. It also provides a vehicle to spotlight students or to shout out good deeds.

6. Candy

Nobody gets too old to enjoy free candy!

7. Anything but a Backpack Day

No backpacks for a day. Tell kids to be as creative as possible in how they transport their materials. 

8. Cafe Karaoke

Had a great week at school? Put a projector up in the Cafe and let students perform for their peers. 

9. The Great Outdoors

I love taking my classes outside. They love it as well. Tie a performance objective to it and watch your students perform to earn a little sunshine. This is a great practice anyway, you and your students both need some vitamin D!

10. All-Sports Pass

Create an all-sports pass that students can use at any after-school event. Tie this to attendance or behavior.

Positive Perks

Think of incentives as perks. If you wanted to attract better employees you would add perks to the job you were posting. If you want to improve culture and motivation at your school include perks for the kids who attend your school and meet the desired goals. 

Whatever you decide to do, be clear about expectations concerning what you want students to do, when they need to do it, and what they will earn for doing so. Don't teach high school students?

We also have some great incentive ideas for middle school students and for elementary school incentives as well!