FIGHT-FREE PROGRAM AT MAY GREENE

Under a program implemented last fall May Greene School students are being rewarded for not fighting

Southeast Missouri State University's cheerleaders and Sundancers will participate Friday in a Fight-Free School Program at May Greene. The groups will perform and speak to the elementary-school children during an assembly at 2 p.m. in the school gym.

"We hope to make an impression and leave a message that we have gotten where we are because our squads cooperate and work together well," said Melanie Moore, spirit groups coach and student promotions coordinator at Southeast.

May Greene's Fight-Free School Program was launched Nov. 15. The program encourages students to avoid fighting.

"We have a wonderful school, but kids sometimes resort to inappropriate behavior," said Barb Kohlfeld, May Greene School principal.

Each classroom has a Fight-Free flag hanging outside the room. May Greene also has a Fight-Free school flag. When a student resorts to fighting, the flag outside that student's room and the school Fight-Free flag are taken down for that day and the next. Classes that go a month without having a student involved in a fight are invited to an assembly on the last Friday of the month. Classes with a student involved in a fight during the past month are not invited, Kohlfeld said.

"The program, through peer pressure, encourages them to do the right thing" and to work out differences through communication, she said. "We're really trying to extinguish inappropriate behavior."

Kohlfeld said the program was pioneered in St. Louis and now is being incorporated in other schools as part of the drug-free school initiative. May Greene, which has 213 students enrolled in grades K-6, is the only school in Cape Girardeau involved in the program.