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Scholastic

Determining Lettering Criteria For Your School

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lettering criteria

As a coach, sponsor, administrator or principal – you are often tasked with determining what criteria qualifies a student for lettering in a sport or program. There are many considerations for this determination, and we’re here to help.

There are three things you look to accomplish by offering letter jackets to your students:

  1. Reward & recognize students for their achievements and contributions to the school.
  2. Encourage students who are not yet participating in a program to join.
  3. Incentivize current program participants to excel & meet goals.

Understanding the purpose of letter jackets, how do you decide what qualifies a student to letter? Does everyone in the program receive a jacket?

Lettering criteria is important to a school and its programs. Lettering requirements need to be an accomplishment that is earned and that a student feels proud to have achieved. Making the jacket too obtainable can demean the hard work of high-achieving students and discourage participants from striving toward growth.

Simply put, lettering criteria sets the bar for student expectations and performance. Create standards for your students with your recognition policies.

So, what are you trying to accomplish in your program? This is how you determine your lettering qualifications.

  • Participation? Set lettering criteria for all Juniors in the program.
  • Academic excellence? Make a grade point average requirement part of lettering.
  • Performance? Choose qualifiers and benchmarks for performance you’d like to see in your students.
  • Commitment? Choose a number of years of participation as a requirement for lettering.
  • Well-roundedness? Set goals for cross-program participation.

The bottom line is that the criteria for lettering in your program is dependent upon the goals you would like to achieve. Setting a criterion for lettering is important to assign value and even the playing field for hard working and high achieving students.

Shape your student body by setting a standard of excellence in the areas you want to see your school succeed and excel.

Lettering In Real Life

Here are some examples of what other schools are implementing in their programs.

Academics

  • GPA of 3.5 or ACT Scores of 26 or higher.
  • 1 honors class, 1 AP class and a minimum GPA of 3.5
  • National Merit Scholars
  • Literary Rally participation

Sports

  • Number of quarters, innings, or minutes played
  • # of points earned at an event
  • Length of time on the team
  • # of sports programs participated in

Theater

  • Presentation in 3-5 productions
  • Participation in the theater program for at least 2 years

Band

  • Participation in both marching and concert band.
  • Representing the school in a state or district honor band.
  • Becoming 1st chair of a band section.

Other Clubs

  • Number of service hours performed.
  • Participation in the activity at a competitive level.
  • Holding an office in the club or program.

Do you play a role in your school or program’s lettering process? The Recognition Company would love to help you navigate the qualifications for your students. Whether lettering is new to your program or you’d like to re-evaluate your goals in an existing one, let’s brainstorm together.

(866) 924-2778
orders@therecognitionco.com

5 Reasons to Love Your Planner

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Academic Planner

  1. A New Planner is A New Start

Is it just me, or does anyone else look forward to the purchase of a fresh new planner? Now, I purchase planners at the beginning of the year, but I remember the excitement of getting academic planners at the start of a school year! I loved all of the empty spaces and the smell of possibility with the pages. There’s something about a planner that signifies change and a fresh start.

  1. A Planner Holds Our Memories

Somehow I’ve managed to hold on to just about every journal and planner that I’ve used since my teenage years. I can’t bear to throw them away. Why? Because my life was lived within their pages. In our planners, we live and document our everyday lives.

I love that I can pick up an old planner and look back on a year and see what I had written on my little to-do list and remember exactly what life felt like in that season. I can remember the classes that swamped me when I started college, that one summer of freedom and wild adventures, and those crazy 6 months of wedding planning that I would never want to relive again. A planner holds precious memories and we can keep them forever.

  1. A Planner Reduces Anxiety

Planners keep us sane. In the busyness and hectic pace of our lives, planners do the tracking and the remembering so that we don’t have to. I always feel a bit of relief after spending time with my planner because I’m able to sort of just dump out everything that’s swirling in my mind onto its pages. From my head, onto the calendar it goes and I suddenly feel free!

After emptying out all of the details of my mind that I’ve been clutching onto, I’m relieved of that awful tinge of anxiety I have of forgetting something important. Can you relate to this? Planners keep track of the tiny details that our overwhelmed minds can so easily forget. They are anxiety reducers for people like me!

  1. A Planner Ensures Success

For a student a great planner is not only a luxury, but a necessity for success. We aren’t successful by accident; we become successful when we plan accordingly. A planner helps us prioritize what’s most important and keeps all of the details of our life in the right perspective. A planner helps us to see the big picture, like what due dates are coming up so that we don’t have to pull all-nighters to get something turned in.

I love my planner because not only does it reduce my anxiety of forgetting something, but it gives me the confidence that I can do my job well. With my planner, I know what’s in front of me and what’s on my plate so that I can prioritize my time more efficiently.

  1. A Planner Streamlines Communication

Communication is an essential part of being successful. A teacher with a student, a student with a parent- these are just two vital streams of communication that must happen regularly.

For a parent, a planner is peace of mind and communication with your student, as well as your student’s teachers. Your child may not tell you everything that’s going on at school but the planner will! A planner is really a go-between that connects home life to school life. It really is a must-have for a successful school year!

Share the Best Years of Your Life with the Best People in Your Life

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Imagine this scene: A family piles into the living room and pulls an old book off the shelf. But this isn’t just any kind of book- it’s mom’s senior yearbook. It’s covered in dust and faded from the years, but when it’s opened the memories come alive as if they were lived yesterday.

Laughter erupts as the kids find mom’s picture. There’s a joke about her hair and those glasses that are actually cool again. They ask her about who the boy was that had a heart scribbled across his face. That boyfriend that she had never thought to mention to them before suddenly have them all ears for details.

Mom laughs it off and then changes the subject. She points to their dad- a tall skinny guy that they don’t even recognize. “That’s you, dad?” a little boy asks in shock. He knew his dad played basketball, but on these pages, a better story is told. Dad didn’t just play basketball- he was player of the year! “Do you still have that jacket?” the daughter asks. Dad’s letterman jacket is now a fashion statement that the kids are fighting over.

The kids continue to poke fun at the style of clothing and ask about mom and dad’s friends. They’ve heard some of these stories before, but now that these people have a face, they can really imagine their teenage years. Their attention is turned to all of the hand-written notes on the front and back pages of the yearbook. They ask mom about all of the silly inside jokes and ask about the nicknames she used to have. She had completely forgotten about them! And those love notes from the boys, those are read aloud with dramatic performance. They’re never going to let her live this down.

Memories Come Back to Life in Yearbooks

Right there in a living room, a whole new world of memories were unfolded. Those short high school years that flashed by so quickly can be remembered and treasured forever. Things that we tend to forget about- like that friend that sat next to us in Chemistry and that group of people we always had lunch with- they all become real again and we can share them with the people we love.

What a precious gift that is, to be able to share the best years of your life with the best people in your life.

All because of a yearbook.

You Can’t Put a Price on Sharing Your Life with the Ones You Love Most

Why do people invest money into yearbooks? Because they capture and encapsulate some of the best years of our lives. They hold memories that we would have otherwise lost if they weren’t recorded. Yearbook memories can be passed on to the people that you love the most.