When you enter the counseling office at George Mason, you can see a yellow bumper sticker on Ms. Ilana Reyes’s door that reads “Falls Church City Schools: We Honor All of Our Students”. In previous years, this wasn’t true. The new MBC awards is first step to achieving this realistic and attainable goal.

George Mason is one of the most challenging schools in Virginia and the country. Students at Mason work hard and there is nothing wrong with rewarding us for all that we do.

Most kids aren’t going to get a 4.0 or be a star athlete. We aren’t all going to excel in every aspect of our educational and personal lives. But one thing we have all have in common is that we all work and we all try. Whether or not we achieve an A or score a bunch of goals in a sports game shouldn’t have any affect on whether or not we are recognized by our school.

If our administrators want to take us out of class to reward its students for doing a good job, we should let them! Why would anyone be opposed to your fellow classmates getting awarded? It seems as though students who previously achieved the Principal’s Scholar Award (achieving 4.0+ GPA for the quarter) are the ones who are most upset about “everyone” getting recognized for their efforts.

It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I believe there are a lot of kids at Mason who don’t receive any form of recognition, perhaps both at home and at school.
The school is trying to show appreciation for all of the hard work we all do in school, not just based in the form of our GPA.

And with that being said, it is also unacceptable that only 200 kids did not receive an MBC award. It was irresponsible and frankly inexcusable that 75% of students received an award while the remaining 25% were left to sit unrecognized.

Every student shares the common bond of being at George Mason for seven hours a day, five days a week. We are all excellent and we need to support each other, no matter what our grades or MBC accomplishments are.