At Bordewich Bray Elementary School, students are finding themselves as more than just dolphins — this year, each student was sorted into one of four houses with the mission of boosting belonging, leadership and healthy competition within the student body.
Obviously as a millennial, the first thing to pop into my head when hearing about this new system was the Hogwarts houses from Harry Potter. However, Bordewich Bray Principal Cheryl Richetta explained the model is actually based on the Ron Clark Academy (RCA), an innovative educational model based out of an Atlanta nonprofit middle school.
The program sorts every student (and staff member!) into one of four houses: Altruismo (The House of Givers), Amistad (The House of Friendship), Isibindi (The House of Courage) and Rêveur (the House of Dreamers).
The Houses:
Altruismo – House of Givers – Color: Black – Symbol: Snake
Amistad – House of Friendship – Color: Red – Symbol: Peacock
Isibindi – House of Courage – Color: Green Symbol: Lion
Rêveur – House of Dreamers – Color: Blue – Symbol: Wolf is the symbol
During the school year, students earn points for academic tasks like completing their homework, school citizenship like following rules or walking in a straight line, as well as everyday kindness.
“The house system is really all about having a sense of belonging,” Richetta said. “Kids aren’t just earning points for themselves — they’re working for the greater good of their house, and we teach good sportsmanship whether you’re on top that week or not.”
The new House System rollout was held during the first few weeks of school, which included a “sorting” event. While new students and entering Kindergarteners in the future will spin a wheel to be sorted into their houses, since this was a school-wide sorting ceremony, it needed a big celebration (and one that wouldn’t take several weeks to get through).
For the school-wide sorting event, students picked envelopes containing bracelets in their house color before sliding down an inflatable slide. At the bottom, they ripped open the envelope to reveal their house amidst cheers, music and celebrating.
Teachers and staff are sorted as well, and Richetta said that this year, the “back to school” night was restructured to instead be transformed into four House nights.
“We found that in the past, we haven’t always gotten the greatest turnout [for traditional back to school nights] because it’s so close to the end of Summer, there’s evening sports and a bunch of other stuff going on. So we decided this year, instead of doing the back to school night, each teacher would have their House night, in which they would come and run this event — so it’s kind of their back to school night throughout the year.”
The plan is to host one of these family and community nights each quarter; recently, House Altruismo kicked off the year with their “Pumpkins and Math” themed celebration.
Richetta said that every teacher is contracted to attend one night per year, which is typically the back to school night.
“But our classified staff, who do not have that requirement — every single one of them in the House of Altruismo showed up, because they want to be part of the community,” she said. “It was just amazing.”
By allowing the House teachers to plan the events, it also allowed for new and unique opportunities for students.
“I said, you can do whatever you want to do,” Richetta said. “And they came up with this math and pumpkins idea — one of the teachers of Altruismo, her husband is a rancher, and had a connection where we could get all these pumpkins donated to us, which was awesome. And he also was the one who brought the cow.”
Richetta said that it’s well known that if you have food, people will come — but the school can’t always afford the costs to feed hundreds of families. So, they reached out to the Altruismo parents and asked if they’d be willing to lend a hand.
“We asked if they’d be willing to donate an item, and we had a share table out of different snacks or desserts — and we had an absolutely overwhelming response from our Altruismo parents who brought in food,” Richetta said. “It really made for a great night all around.”
Good Sportsmanship & Belonging
One of the great things about growing up in Carson City is that a smaller community lends itself to friendly rivalries: Eagle Valley Middle versus Carson Middle, Carson High versus Douglas High, etc.
But when it comes to the elementary schools, that sense of goodnatured competition is naturally lacking. Now with the House System, there is a sense of communities within the larger school community that fuels both a sense of belonging and competition.
“It’s really cool, if you walk into our classrooms, each of the houses has a chant. And so when a kid does something great in the classroom and earns that point, if they’re in Altruismo for example, the teacher will say “A-L-T” and they go “R-U-I, S-M-O” so the whole class joins in to cheer for that kid who got that point.”
She said that while competition is natural, it’s also a great opportunity to teach students good sportsmanship right from the beginning.
“The point of the house system is to uplift one another, and so we talk about having good sportsmanship, and even if it’s not your house that’s the winner, or your house that has the most points, we’re still cheering for each other.”
It is also a way to provide a sense of immediate belonging for students, whether they’re a Kindergartner, a transfer student mid-year, or in a new class where they may not have the same buddies as the year before.
“The whole idea is that kids get to belong to something,” Richetta said. “They belong to a group, and if you can imagine a new student starting at our school, they spin the wheel and figure out what house they’ll be in, and everyone is cheering for them because they all want the new kid in their house. Think about what the sense of belonging can be for that student, or for our students who may have been bullied in the past, or had issues where they didn’t get along with others, or didn’t feel like they had friends — now they belong to this group and they’re all working together.”
Since at least the 1980s, research has been dedicated to studying what happens when children interact with peers both older and younger than themselves — and what happens when they are isolated within their own age groups. Gen Z is perhaps the first generation where a large percentage has only interacted with others in their same age range, as the roaming packs of neighborhood kids of mixed ages are a rarity in today’s world.
While the House System may not be the cure to this nationwide problem, it does have the capacity to make positive changes in the right direction.
“The Houses have regular house meetings, and so far we’ve had two,” Richetta said. “During those meetings, the entire house gets together, which means all of the students from pre-K through fifth grade who belong to each house will meet together.”
In the future, Richetta said what they would like to see happen is have the fifth grade students work with the younger students in a “buddy-system.”
“We want them to have their people that they look forward to seeing and have things that they look forward to doing,” Richetta said. “So if they come to school and they know they have that support system, that they have an older kid they can go to — that’s what it’s all about. And then we get to teach our older kids how to be that support system for our younger kids.”
She said next year since the majority of those being sorted will be Kindergarteners and Pre-K students, the goal is to have their fifth graders there cheering them on.
“And then when they do get into their house they have someone who tells them, ‘Hey, I’m here for you, you’re part of us now, I’m your buddy.”
Community involvement
Richetta said the school is always looking for partners in education to help support their students, whether it’s through volunteering for events, monetary donations to the PTO (who fundraised over $6,000 to purchase t-shirts in their house’s colors for all students and staff) or donations or small rewards to provide student rewards.
Currently, Richetta said that the next goal is to slowly transform the school to have a more “home-like” atmosphere. She said one of the things that struck her about the RCA is that the school was filled with photos on the walls, not just of things that happened at school, but of family photos, community events and the like.
“When you go into your own home, you feel that warmth when you have pictures and memories and a sense of belonging and that we’re a family, and we want to create that here at Bordewich,” she said.
When asked what the community could do to help, she said that if businesses would be willing to donate funds to buy picture frames — or donate the frames themselves — they would be thrilled, along with any other items to use as student reward incentives.
“Monthly we announce the top house [based on earned points],” Richetta said. “So last month, we did popsicles, and we were able to have those popsicles donated — we’re always looking for little things like that.”
The next House night will be a Multicultural Night hosted by the House of Amistad on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025.
