This Month's Best Practice

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

OCTOBER

This month's Best Practices is from an award winning school from 2004-2005.

 

BEST CHARACTER EDUCATION PRACTICES

 

School: Mary Matula Elementary School

Address: 6025 Radio Station Road, La Plata, MD 20646
Contact: Carol Leveillee, Principal   or
         Courtney Roberts, Guidance Counselor
Phone: 301-934-5412
E-Mail: cleveillee@ccboe.com
              croberts@ccboe.com

 

 

Title of Best Practice: Character Slips

Primary Character Trait(s) Emphasized: Respect, Responsibility, and Caring

Objective(s): Matula Elementary School strives to instill good character in all of our students. Respect, Responsibility, and Caring. We help students realize what specific actions show different character traits. We recognize students that demonstrate positive choices. One way we encourage and recognize students is through character slips

Brief Description (including such items as materials needed, persons responsible, sequence of activities, observable results, references, etc.)

Activities:

• Character slips are given to students when they are observed making a good choice. The character slip is given to the student and he or she takes it up to the front office, gets an “I earned a character slip today” sticker, and places the slip in the star jar. At the end of the week five or six character slip are drawn from the star jar to be announced on the morning announcements and to go to our principal’s treasure box. The slips are then placed in our character pillar in the main lobby. Every character slip from the year is in the pillar and people are able to see that character is a part of our school. Student pride is evident at all stages of the process.

• Each step in the character slip process is intentional. The wording on the character slips include the character trait shown, the specific action supporting the character trait and the names of the student receiving the slip as well as the staff member giving the slip. The stickers that are given out are a way to communicate to others that the student made a good choice. When other students and staff in the building see a student wearing a sticker they often ask what the student did. The parents may also notice it when the child gets home and ask about it. The star jar holds the collected slips for the week before a few are drawn for recognition, which praises students publicly and gives real examples of good character. The pillar in the main lobby of the school is another public way to let all visitors know that we are a school of character.

• Character slips are a practice that only requires the paper slips, stickers that are made by our secretary, a star jar and the character pillar. A group of students in character club draw out slips each week to be recognized. This practice is one that is easy to implement and the results are apparent in the pride of students when they earn a character slip.

 

 

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The Maryland Center for Character Education
29 West Susquehanna Ave., Suite 300, Baltimore, MD 21204

Phone: 410-823-4902
Fax: 410-828-9661
E-Mail: MCCEcharacter@aol.com