How Central Middle School Achieved 100% Teacher Participation in Their First Semester
In their first semester with LiveSchool, Central Middle School in Evergreen Park, Illinois achieved something rare: every single teacher actively awarding points to students. Assistant Principal Christina Lavin built buy-in by asking teachers what they needed, letting students help run the reward store, and keeping the system focused entirely on positivity.
“You're going to fail before you know you have your victories. It's just trial and error and ask your teachers for help and ask the students what they want.”
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An Emotional Roller Coaster That Needed a System
When Christina Lavin looked at student behavior at Central Middle School in Evergreen Park, Illinois, she saw something she had never witnessed before in her career. Students were cycling rapidly between emotional states: excited one moment, sad the next, angry immediately after. They wanted to learn but did not know how to control their behavior. They needed guidance and direction but were, as Lavin described it, bouncing off the walls.
Before LiveSchool, many teachers at Central had been using a different behavior system, but it was not designed for middle school students. The platform did not connect with what made older students tick. Lavin and her team recognized that any new system had to be built around what actually motivated their specific population, with mental health and whole-child development at the center.
The district superintendent was fully supportive of a positive-only approach. Rather than tracking what students did wrong, the school chose to build their entire LiveSchool implementation around recognizing kindness, helpfulness, and simply following directions. The decision to focus exclusively on positivity was a philosophical commitment that shaped every subsequent choice about rewards, point values, and teacher expectations.
The Friday Store and 3D-Printed Fidgets
Central Middle School opened its reward store every Friday, stocked with items that reflected what students actually wanted. The inventory ranged from school lanyards and t-shirts to candy, hat chips, and fidgets. Students could also spend points on social experiences: basketball with friends in the morning before school, dodgeball, lunch with a chosen group of friends in a supervised classroom, or time on the school's gaming computers.
The unexpected bestseller was fidgets produced on a 3D printer by one of the school's own teachers. The cost to the school was minimal since they were using equipment already on site, and student demand was consistently high. It was a practical example of how creative, low-cost rewards could generate as much excitement as expensive purchased items.
Students who preferred non-athletic options could choose board games or simply the social reward of eating lunch with friends they selected. The variety was deliberate. Lavin wanted every student to find something worth working toward, regardless of their interests. When the weather improved, outdoor options would expand the menu further.
A Student-Run Operation
One of the defining features of Central's implementation was how much responsibility students took on. An eighth-grade student who had known Lavin since sixth grade noticed her stress managing the store alone and volunteered to help. He became the store manager, handling inventory, deliveries, and logistics during store hours.
Other students saw him working and asked to help too. The store became a student-run operation, with Lavin overseeing but students managing the day-to-day. It was an accidental leadership development program: the student running the store was building organizational and management skills that most students do not encounter until much later.
Student input went beyond logistics. When students suggested new rewards, Lavin's default answer was yes. If a student came to her with an idea that was feasible, she found a way to make it work. The philosophy was simple: the system existed for students, so their preferences should drive it. Students were the customer, and treating them that way built ownership of the program across the student body.
Asking Teachers What They Need
Central Middle School achieved 100% teacher participation in their first semester. That result was not accidental. On the first day Lavin introduced LiveSchool to staff, she did not lead with a mandate. She asked a question: what do you need to make sure everyone uses this?
The answer was iPads. Teachers had Chromebooks but wanted an additional mobile device they could carry while walking around classrooms and hallways, awarding points in real time. Lavin worked with her superintendent and district administration to secure one-to-one iPad distribution for all staff. The investment removed the friction that often kills adoption of new tools: if awarding a point required walking back to a desk and opening a laptop, many teachers would skip it.
The approach inverted the typical rollout dynamic. Instead of administration choosing a tool and hoping teachers would comply, Lavin positioned the system as something she wanted to accomplish and invited teachers to define what support they needed to get behind it. Teachers responded by not only using the system but asking for more: more reward assemblies, more incentive events, more ways to celebrate students.
The Low Down with Lavin
Communication at Central ran through a weekly newsletter Lavin created called the Low Down with Lavin. It served as the central hub for everything related to LiveSchool and school culture. Each edition included the current leaderboard, updates on what was available in the store, information about upcoming events, and a trivia question students could answer by email for bonus points.
The trivia component created an unexpected engagement channel. Lavin would receive hundreds of emails from students submitting answers. The volume was significant, but she viewed it as a positive signal. Students who might never raise their hand in class or approach a teacher would engage through email. The quieter students, the ones who might otherwise be invisible, were consistently among the top trivia participants.
A bulletin board in the school reinforced the same information for students who were more visual. The combination of digital and physical communication ensured that points, standings, and reward opportunities were never a mystery. Teachers received the same newsletter, keeping everyone aligned on what the school was celebrating and what behaviors they were targeting that week.
District Support and the Road to Service Leadership
One of Central's most unusual assets was active school board involvement. When Lavin presented LiveSchool at the beginning of the year, board members did not just approve the program. They asked what they could do to help. The board committed to providing a significant prize for the student with the highest point total, elevating recognition from the school level to the district level.
That kind of institutional support sent a clear signal to teachers, students, and families: this was not a passing initiative. With a top student already at 12,000 points by early January, the anticipation around the final prize was building genuine excitement. Lavin had not yet determined exactly what the prize would be, but the school board's engagement made it clear that the reward would match the achievement.
Looking ahead, Lavin's goal for the second half of the year and beyond was to shift the focus toward service and community leadership. She recognized that students first needed to develop self-awareness and self-regulation before they could meaningfully contribute to others. The progression from earning points for following directions to earning recognition for community service represented the long arc of the program: meeting students where they were and gradually raising the bar as their capacity grew.
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