Famed green slips, exchanged and received by few, yet known by all. These little slips are more than just pieces of paper, though. They are a unique currency—Spartan Bucks—that students trade in on Fridays in exchange for rewards.

The Spartan Buck system is an incentive in which students receive Spartan Buck,which are given out to students who fulfill the three R’s of White Station High School’s (WSHS) conduct code—being responsible, being respectful and building relationships. The distribution of Spartan Bucks is intended to support school culture and give students an incentive for good behavior, which can help students when they have difficulty feeling motivated.

However, despite the goal of Spartan Bucks to give encouragement, many students feel as though their distribution is unfair. Some see it as being steeped in favoritism, whereas some are opposed to giving out Spartan Bucks in accordance with WSHS principles. Some think teachers give them to students they like or even favorites, while disregarding students who are exemplary. Some also feel that they are given as a spur of the moment rather than with a system.

“From what I’ve seen, it’s really sporadic,” Ishika Sen (11) said. “Teachers are like, ‘Oh my gosh! Thank you for answering that question when no one else raised their hand—here’s a Spartan Buck!”

In addition to concerns of favoritism, some students see issues with the distribution of Spartan Bucks. Teachers are given five Spartan Bucks at the beginning of the school year which can be given out periodically. Ideally, all five Spartan Bucks are supposed to be distributed across a week, redeemed in the Spartan store, and then recycled back to the teacher to be given out once again. However, after being given out, these bucks are sometimes not spent or even, in some cases, lost. In other scenarios, they are not given out at all.

“I think the idea of them is really nice,” Joi King (11) said. “I think it’s a good thing to get into. However, I think the only problem would be the fact that it’s not enough distribution.”

While most teachers have 140-200 students, they have five Spartan Bucks that they can give out. Because of this, the reality remains that many students may not receive Spartan Bucks. Teachers have a limited number of Spartan Bucks and must select a few students from all of their classes instead of one or two from each class, for example. Some students feel that it’s the same type of student—usually extroverted students willing to raise their hand and participate often—who receive the Spartan Bucks, and that others are often ignored.

“I feel like they’re not fair, but it’s not just because I haven’t gotten one,” King said. “It’s because no one that I know in any of my classes [has either]. A teacher hasn’t given one out [in a while].”

Distribution of Spartan Bucks is at the discretion of the teacher, making the teacher an intermediary between the facilitators of the program and students themselves. Each teacher has their own process of incentivizing their students. One such teacher is Jacob Walz, a computer science teacher who has been teaching at WSHS since before the Spartan Buck system started in the 2023-24 school year. Walz has his own incentive called “Code Coins,” which he established before Spartan Bucks. They are color-coded into several levels that are used to purchase rewards based on different increments of behavioral achievement. Code Coins can get student rewards that span from snacks to extra credit, free tests, or even doing a TikTok video in Vice Principal Michael Ayers’ golf cart.

“I think that, due to many reasons, it’s good to have a limited amount of [Spartan Bucks],” Walz said. “But with my Code Coins, I purposely tried to kind of ‘flood the market’ there, because I do think it feels good to get something. It feels good to get a little reward, or a physical thing.”

Walz uses Spartan Bucks in his classroom as well along with Code Coins, although more rarely. He makes an effort to reward Spartan Bucks to students who are a shining example of scholarship, which for him are those who help other students and take initiative in class. Considering it is at the teacher’s discretion how they decide to distribute Spartan Bucks, the system looks different depending on the classroom.

“So I don’t think that it would necessarily be that the system, that Spartan Bucks themselves are unfair,” Walz said. “It could be the application of the system.”

The Spartan Buck system itself is run by behavioral specialist Kevaughn Griffith (also known as Coach K.G.), and Brenden Rye, educational assistant and wrestling coach. The Spartan Buck system was an existing plan for some time, but was first strongly implemented in the 2023 – 2024 school year. Each year it has grown and become more prevalent. The number of Spartan Bucks must be the same as the number of rewards; there is a limited amount of Spartan Bucks as there is a limited budget allocated to buy the snacks.

“In theory, there are probably about 530-ish Spartan Bucks that have been issued,” Griffith said. “If everybody issued all of theirs, and all of those people came and spent them all in one day, we would run out of stuff very quickly.”

Teachers have a degree of autonomy when it comes to giving out Spartan Bucks. They receive an email at the beginning of the year with an explanation of the Spartan Buck system and how to cooperate in implementing it, but incentivization as a whole can be handled in different ways, including the role of the Spartan Bucks depending on how teachers decide to go about it, which is intentional.

“We like to give a level of autonomy to the teachers, because they’re the ones that are spending the most time with the students,” Griffith said.

The Spartan Store has been hitting record numbers since the beginning of the year, with 150 bucks redeemed in one week, which is more than has been seen in a Spartan Store opening in previous years. For some students, connecting with teachers may take more effort than others. Griffith gives this advice to students looking to receive a Spartan Buck:

“[Put] the ball in that teacher’s court and say, ‘Hey, I want to earn a Spartan buck. What do I need to do?’”

This on its own can establish a relationship between a teacher and a student. One of the goals of the program is to encourage building relationships, and having an individual conversation that voices concern to a teacher can establish a new relationship. If a student wants a Spartan Buck, they can try exceeding not only others around them, but also themselves.

“In a perfect society, everyone is respectful, everyone is responsible and everyone builds relationships, and that’s great,” Rye said. “But if that is your norm, what about going above and beyond?”

While students may look forward to receiving candy and chips at the Spartan Store, Spartan Bucks are ultimately meant to encourage building good character that will last even beyond high school.

“I think it’s important for students to know that this is about building good habits,” Griffith said. “This is not just about going to get hot chips and skittles. That’s the added incentive. But ultimately, we want to encourage our students to be respectful, be responsible, and build relationships, because those things, even without the Spartan Bucks, even without the snacks, will still ultimately benefit you in life.”

This story was originally published on The Scroll on October 10, 2025.