Jayson Bardell admits he wasn’t always the best student, but with the support of the faculty and staff at Emily C. Watkins Elementary School, he turned things around.

The fourth grader is proud of making it on the A/B honor for the first, second and third nine weeks this year, adding he believes if you do good things, good things will happen to you.

Rajean Populus, fourth grade math and social studies teacher, said Jayson deserves recognition for his hard work and improved behavior.

“He always does his homework, he’s been making honor roll and he participated and placed in the spelling bee,” Populus said. “He is exemplifying Emily C. Watkins’ positive behavior.”

Populus also notes Jayson goes to the public library to help others with math homework.

“I try to teach the students to help others,” she said. “He is doing amazing in math. I said, ‘If you have a gift, try to use it to help others.’ Some students do tend to struggle in math, but what Jayson does is try to help them and make sure they understand it. The goal in my classes is to make sure everybody is on the same page. So if someone is struggling with something, the students can help each other.”

Populus said Jayson struggled a little at first and was very talkative when the school year began.

She said he has made a huge turnaround as far as what is expected of him by understanding the way the classroom works.

“He really tries hard and he offers advise to other kids,” Populus said. “He is becoming a leader.”

Jayson said his grades were lower when he used to do bad things.

“Now that I do good things, my grades are higher,” he said. “I thought I was too cool to do the schoolwork and felt like I didn’t need it. Now I see that my behavior reflects everything else that I do.”

Today, the honor roll student said he loves school and learning new things. His favorite subjects are science, because he finds it interesting, and social studies, because he likes history.

He doesn’t have a least favorite subject.

Jayson has also formed a passion for helping others. That’s why he helps those struggling with their homework.

“Some people don’t get this as easy, and I feel bad for them and want to help them,” he said. “A lot of people struggle, and you can help them through tutoring. I help sometimes at (the central library in LaPlace) because a lot of people struggle with math and I don’t struggle in math. I have an A average.”

Jayson said math is important to learn, adding it’s used in one of his favorite sports, basketball. The young basketball player says math is important when a shooter is trying to make a basket, because he needs to calculate where the ball needs to go.

Jayson also plays baseball and football, adding football is his favorite sport. He plans to play football in high school and, hopefully, play in the NFL for the Green Bay Packers, San Francisco 49ers or New England Patriots.