This Month's Best Practice

Each Month the Maryland Center for Character Education at Stevenson University (MCCE@SU) picks one of the Best Practices from a Character Education award winning school to share with you.

JANUARY

This month's Best Practices is from an award winning school from 2010-2011.

 

BEST CHARACTER EDUCATION PRACTICES

 

School: Loch Raven High School

Address: 1212 Cowpens Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21286
Principal: Bonnie Lambert
E-Mail: blambert@bcps.org

Phone: 410-887-3525

 

Character Ed. Contacts: Susan Ensor
E-Mail: sensor@bcps.org

 

Primary Principles Emphasized: 1, 7, 8, and 10

 

Title of Best Practice: Loch Raven Local Heroes

 

Objective(s): The Local Heroes initiative publicly recognizes students for contributing to the school community through kind acts, self-improvement, helpful acts, and modeling good character traits.

Description:

One of the most successful and long-standing programs of the LRHS Character Education Committee is the recognition of Local Heroes. Students are nominated by teachers and staff for any good work that they do. Students can be nominated for good deeds, for being helpful, for assisting teachers or peers, for hard work, for improvement in class, as well as for activities in or out of school that represent good character.

 

Students and parents are invited to a quarterly celebration we call the Breakfast of Champions. At this breakfast, we recognize Local Heroes along with students who have made the Principal’s List for academic achievement. By combining the recognition of both “good” students and “smart” students, we convey that all students are valued at Loch Raven High School.

 

Faculty and staff members from the Character Education Committee compile the nominations on a spreadsheet which is used to print passes for students, to create letters to be mailed to parents, and to prepare certificates for the award winners. We rely on assistance from photography students and student office assistants to take photos. Pictures of our Local Hero students annotated with the reason for their award are prominently displayed in two showcases in the main lobby. They remain there until the next quarter’s honorees’ pictures replace them.

 

At the quarterly Breakfast of Champions, we provide a breakfast of juice, Danish, and muffin. Each student’s nomination form is read and the student is recognized and given a certificate and a token gift (i.e. school pen).

Principle 1: Promotes core ethical values as the basis of good character.
Teachers and staff members nominate students to receive Local Heroes Awards for a variety of reasons mostly based on being kind, being helpful, or for improving their grades. Some excerpts from nomination forms are:

• “Always displays a positive attitude, goes out of her way to help both fellow students and teachers.”
• “A very empathetic and caring young lady; helps others stay organized.”
• “Has gone above and beyond to ensure that our AVID classroom reflects its college-bound goals.”
• “Displayed school pride and willingness to be helpful when he volunteered to clean up a messy lunch table that was not where he and his friends sit.”
• “Exemplifies respectful behavior - a role model for other students.”
• “Cheerfully and competently helps anyone who asks her to do anything.”
• “Has excellent attendance, completes all assignments and extra credit; listens carefully and asks questions.”
• “Takes initiative to clean up and organize materials; willingly helps others; doesn't seek recognition.”
• “Has shown random acts of kindness towards other students in class – also assists with cleaning up lab materials, etc,”
• “For planning and organizing a fantastic survivor dinner for Relay for Life”
• “For outstanding service as co-chairs for Relay for Life”

By recognizing students for these types of actions and behavior, LRHS demonstrates that we value good character.

Principle 2: Defines "character" comprehensively to include thinking, feeling, and behavior.
A few years ago several members of the faculty heard Dr. P. M. Forni speak at the BCPS Safe Schools Conference, and read his book, Choosing Civility. Following this, the guidance counselors and administration developed a distillation of Dr. Forni’s ideas and proposed the idea of teaching civility lessons to students. At a subsequent leadership team meeting, it was decided that a suitable target audience would be ninth grade students and that the presentations could occur during Fundamentals of Fitness classes. The lessons, including role play activities for students, represent ten essential traits of civility and have been conducted by teams of administrators and counselors during the first month of school. The ten traits called “Loch Raven High School 10 Rules of Considerate Conduct” are listed on the following page.

 

During the current school year, teachers used one of our enrichment periods from an “eight period day” to lead discussions about the LRHS Rules of Considerate Conduct for students in all grades.

 

Loch Raven High School
10 Rules of Considerate Conduct

Listen
Be inclusive
Speak kindly
Accept and give praise
Don’t shift responsibility and blame
Respect each other’s opinion
Dress for success
Respect other people’s space
Apologize earnestly

Be a leader

Principle 3: Uses a comprehensive, intentional, proactive, and effective approach to character development.
Loch Raven High School has had a very active Values Education program for several years. This year, we incorporated the existing Values Education Committee into the Character Education Team, and elevated it to be one of our four Student Achievement Teams that meets monthly.

Over the past several years, this committee has established several initiatives to stress the importance of good character. At Loch Raven High School we teach effective character traits using our 10 Rules for Considerate Conduct. We model good character on a daily basis and recognize it in each other through the Random Acts of Kindness Program and its extension, RAK It Forward. We reward students through our Local Heroes recognition ceremony at the Breakfast of Champions. And, we reinforce good habits with our quarterly reminders that are announced, posted in classrooms, and referred to throughout the day by teachers, students, counselors, and administrators. The quarterly initiatives for this year have been “One Voice at a Time,” “Hands Off,” and “SAIL.” The latter is an acronym for safety, attitude, integrity, and language, all areas where mindfulness of our actions affects our interactions with others in the school community. Because SAIL is so comprehensive and aligns with our school identity as “Raiders,” the Character Education Committee voted to continue it through the remainder of the year.

Principle 4: Creates a caring school community.
By directly teaching our 10 Rules of Considerate Conduct, by recognizing students as Local Heroes, and by catching each other performing Random Acts of Kindness, Loch Raven High School communicates that kindness, integrity, and empathy are important to all in our community. By reinforcing the concepts of our quarterly initiatives, One Voice at a Time, Hands Off, and SAIL, we showcase the importance of caring for each other.

 

Additionally, students and faculty are involved in many service activities to assist others. These include food and clothing drives by the SGA and FBLA, the Interact Club, Invisible Children, and Relay for Life. Loch Raven High School has raised more funds for Relay for Life than any other high school in the country for the last three years.

Principle 5: Provides students with opportunities for moral action.
(The following is repeated from Principle 4 above.)
Students and faculty are involved in many service activities to assist others. These include food and clothing drives by the SGA and FBLA, the Interact Club, Invisible Children, and Relay for Life. Loch Raven High School has raised more funds for Relay for Life than any other high school in the country for the last three years.

 

Principle 6 : Includes a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all learners, develops their character, and helps them to succeed.
In addition to our Character Education Team, we have a faculty Minority Achievement Team that strives to find additional and innovative strategies to increase academic success, respect, and character in our diverse student population. During our period 8 day, our principal meets with a representative group of African American males to address the issues raised by the Minority Achievement Team. These discussions have resulted in greater understanding and appreciation of the challenges facing this group of students. Furthermore, we have invited Dr. Lisa Williams, the Director of Equity and Assurance, to two faculty meetings in order to facilitate discussions designed to build a more culturally responsive school.

Principle 7: Strives to foster students’ self-motivation.
Since their classmates’ Local Heroes nominations and pictures are displayed prominently in the lobby with the reason for their nomination, students see that we value good character.

Conversations about the Local Heroes occur daily as students travel through the lobby or wait for dismissal from lunch. Students look for ways to be nominated either for the first time or for additional times.

Principle 8: Engages the school staff as a learning and moral community that shares responsibility for character education and attempts to adhere to the same core values that guide the education of students.
By asking the entire staff to nominate students for Local Heroes, we are including everyone in our school community to be aware of and to recognize good character traits in all. The reasons for nominations vary, but always include recognition of students’ kindness, consideration, diligence, and helpfulness.

 

Principle 9: Fosters shared moral leadership and long range support of the character education initiative.
Loch Raven High School Values Committee preceded the Character Education Committee and actually initiated the Local Heroes and Random Acts of Kindness programs demonstrating that this high school has a history of making character education a priority. During the current school year, the RAKS program was extended to “RAK IT Forward” which extended the Random Acts Program into a challenge for recipients to recognize and acknowledge the kind actions of other colleagues.

The Loch Raven 10 Rules of Considerate Conduct and plans to present lessons to ninth grade students were developed by the leadership team following a Safe Schools presentation. This was a cooperative effort in which administrators and counselors presented character lessons to ninth grade physical education classes. This year, one of the Eight Period Day enrichment periods was devoted to discussing the importance of being considerate of others using the 10 Rules as guidelines.

At our April meeting, the Character Education Committee used the Character Education Quality Standards Self Assessment Scoring Tool to evaluate where we need to grow in our efforts to provide a broad spectrum of character education activities for our school. We have not fully digested the results of our self-evaluation, but intend to use it to plan for next school year.

Principle 10: Engages families and community members as partners in the character-building effort.
Loch Raven Local Heroes initiative allows us to invite students’ families into our school to participate in celebrating their contributions to our school. Seeing the pride in the faces of parents and grandparents as students’ names and nomination forms are read provides evidence that our program is worthwhile. Many of these students might not receive awards for academics or athletics, but they contribute to the school community in ways that are not always recognized. Some of our Local Heroes have been recognized for their contributions to Relay for Life, Interact, and Invisible Children. All of these are service organizations that benefit the community outside of our school and we value student efforts on their behalf.

Principle 11: Evaluates the character of the school, the school staff's functioning as character educators, and the extent to which students manifest good character.
(The first part is repeated from Principle 9)
At our April meeting, the Character Education Committee used the Character Education Quality Standards Self Assessment Scoring Tool to evaluate where we need to grow in our efforts to provide a broad spectrum of character education activities for our school. We have not fully digested the results of our self-evaluation, but intend to use it to plan for next school year.

The LRHS Character Education Committee plans to review the Local Heroes nominations and the students’ feedback from the eight period day lesson on the 10 Rules of Considerate Conduct to refine our initiatives for the future.

---

The Maryland Center for Character Education at Stevenson University
1525 Greenspring Valley Road, Stevenson, MD 21153

E-Mail: MCCEcharacter@aol.com