Sai Gaddabathini, a seventh grade student at Kilmer Middle School, remembers the first time one of his teachers wrote him up. 

“I helped someone with their laptop because it wasn’t functioning,” he recalled. “I had to restart it and do something with it.” 

Sai’s classmate, Mohammed Mansour, also remembers a teacher writing him up: “One time in English, a kid needed help with a question and I tried to help him.”

These kinds of write-ups, called “Positive Referrals,” happen frequently at Kilmer. Staff members recognize students’ good deeds and positive habits by writing about them on a small print-out card and displaying them in the school cafeteria window. The students also receive a coupon with the write-up, which they can spend on a piece of candy or bag of chips, donated by the Kilmer PTA, in the school cafeteria.

Principal Steven McFarlane says the program impacts his students at a critical stage in their lives: “To be a middle school educator, you really have to be passionate about two things: not just the [lesson] content, but the students’ development as human beings.” McFarlane says Positive Referrals started with a question: “For us as a community, how can we recognize every single day the [students] who are doing the right thing?”

Kilmer students are, in fact, recognized with Positive Referrals every day. So far this school year, McFarlane says, staff have handed out more than 1,400 referrals – averaging more than one referral for each of Kilmer’s 1,200 students. With so many referrals being handed out, it doesn’t take long for the large cafeteria windows to fill up. McFarlane says the windows are cleared every few months to make room for new referrals.

Staff members notice the impact. Seventh grade Science Teacher Kristen Mattix has seen her students grow since the first day of school. “In the beginning of the year, most students don’t know each other, they’re figuring it out and are a little bit shy” because, she said, Kilmer’s seventh graders arrive from multiple elementary schools, “But as they realized that Positive Referrals was this amazing celebration, it’s just changed. They’re more willing to jump in and help a friend because they know they’ll get recognized for it.” 

It’s a program that Mattix says is working so well that she’s started writing fewer referrals: “It’s not as needed anymore,” she explained, “because it’s part of the classroom culture.” Today, Mattix noted, students have her read every Positive Referral out loud when one is handed out in her classroom. Each one is met with enthusiastic applause.

More importantly, students feel the positive energy the referrals bring, and they see the caring culture developed around them. “Often in middle school, students feel really doubtful about themselves, have lots of negative feelings; maybe they compare themselves to other kids,” seventh grade student Naomi Rosner reflected. “It can be really hard sometimes, but I feel like when you get a Positive Referral you realize, ‘Hey, I am really good the way I am,’ and you realize that you’re really smart and kind, and you can do lots of great things in this world.”

Kilmer’s Positive Referrals program supports Goal 2 of the FCPS Strategic Plan 2023-30: As staff and students lift each other by rewarding and celebrating positive behavior, they’re fostering a community where everyone feels Safe, Supported, Included, and Empowered. 

It’s a community that’s always growing: as staff members observe, one referral often leads to another. School Counselor Kristen Reighard explains that Positive Referrals have a double impact: “Maybe a student helps another, and that helps the student [being helped] feel better, and then the student who is helping them gets a Positive Referral, so they’re feeling like they’re positively impacted.” 

Physical Education Teacher Alexia Flynn agrees. “I love how it's like a domino effect,” she observed. “When kids receive their positive behavior referral or they notice that you're writing one up, the kids around them are like, ‘Wait, what? How did you get that?’ And they start trying to step up in the classroom because they want to earn that as well.”

For some students, the benefit of mental well-being is a far greater reward than the candy in the cafeteria. “I appreciate that this program is letting students know that it’s good to do good things,” said Naomi, “and it makes them feel really good about themselves.”

Mohammed agrees. “Candy or no candy,” he stated, “it’s good to help people.”