MEXICO — Over three days in early June, 450 pre-K to grade 5 students from Mountain Valley Community School took a field trip to Frosty Delite in Mexico for ice cream as a reward for positive behavior during the school year — and for filling the school’s marble jar for the year.

“We have a community code that includes guidelines for positive behavior: Be Kind, Be Respectful, Be Safe and Be Responsible,” Pre-K teacher Sarah Burnette said.

One layer of the framework for following the community code is filling marble jars when positive behaviors are observed. When a class’s marble jar is full, it is then dumped into a school-wide marble jar.

“When the school-wide marble jar is full, we have a celebration,” said Burnette.

Through fundraisers done throughout the year for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, they had the funds to pay for each child to receive a small soft serve. This also included a discount offered by Frosty Delite owner Bob Bohren so no family had to pay out of pocket.

“We’re a part of the community. It’s a big thing for us to have children here and to encourage them to come here,” said Bohren, owner for 23 of the 74 years of the Main Street business. “So whenever the schools call or libraries or whatever, we try to participate. We give out free programs for the reading programs.”

“We just want to be a part of it,” he added. “It certainly doesn’t hurt us to make sure the kids know we’re here.”

Bohren said his business hires teenagers every year to work at this business, some of whom work there for a few years.

Burnette said this is a first field trip of this kind for students from the new school, but this was a tradition at the former Meroby Elementary School, going back about 15 years.

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