Elementary Kids Fit to be Tied

Ethan Bisbee, from front to back, Caden Morse, Dylan Rodles, Leonardo Ortiz, Jesus Nava, Christian Chilian, Jonathan Jimenez and Christian Duenas-Aguilar, Bayyari Elementary School students, walk back to their classroom Tuesday morning. The school has introduced dressing professionally with Ties on Tuesdays to encourage their students to think about their professional appearance.

Ethan Bisbee, from front to back, Caden Morse, Dylan Rodles, Leonardo Ortiz, Jesus Nava, Christian Chilian, Jonathan Jimenez and Christian Duenas-Aguilar, Bayyari Elementary School students, walk back to their classroom Tuesday morning. The school has introduced dressing professionally with Ties on Tuesdays to encourage their students to think about their professional appearance.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

— Caden Morse doesn’t mind wearing a tie to school. In fact, the Bayyari Elementary kindergartener seems to enjoy it.

“It feels like you have a special job when you have to wear a tie,” said Caden, 5.

That prompted a response from a classmate, 6-year-old Ethan Bisbee.

“You do have a special job. It’s learning,” Ethan said.

Both boys were among those wearing ties Dec. 18 as part of Bayyari’s Ties on Tuesdays program, which started this fall.

Jim Tran, a fourth-grade teacher at the school, saw a television report a couple of years ago about an inner-city school where the staff encouraged students to dress up for their classes.

That’s where he got the idea for Ties on Tuesdays, giving the school’s more than 300 boys a reason to wear a tie to school at least one day per week.

There was only one big problem with the idea: Tran found many boys didn’t own a tie.

Through some financial donations from Everett Chevrolet and First Security Bank, the school was able to buy more than 300 clip-on ties for the boys.

Nathan Nailling, a trust officer at First Security Bank, said a Bayyari teacher who’s a friend approached him about the possibility of getting the bank’s support.

“She asked if the bank would be interested, and I ran it up the flagpole,” Nailling said. “It sounded like a great deal. It was a unique opportunity with young men. We might be able to recruit some future bankers there.”

Nailling attended an event at Bayyari in November where the school presented the new ties to the boys.

“That was really cool,” Nailling said. “Just to see (the boys) smiling and happy, for me, I got a lot of joy out of it.”

Not every boy wears his tie every Tuesday. Tran said about 50 of them do.

Martha Walker, Bayyari principal, said the initiative fits with the school’s broader effort to instill good character traits in its students.

“I think our boys are beginning to understand professionalism and that makes a difference when they’re coming to learn,” Walker said.

Bayyari has five men working at the school, an unusual number for an elementary school. Tran said all of them wear ties on Tuesdays.