Imagine Schools’ tagline, “Developing Character, Enriching Minds,” reflects our commitment to educating the whole child—in heart and in mind. It expresses our strong belief that character development is not another thing on our plate, but rather it is foundational and at the forefront of what we do. Our vision is “for every student to reach his or her full potential and discover the pathways for lifelong success.” To remain truly aligned to our vision, we understand the importance of a comprehensive and intentional focus on character development as we do with academic growth. This includes having processes in place for measuring success and identifying improvement areas. Imagine Schools continuously assesses its character development efforts and ensures alignment with Character.org’s (2020) Principle 11: The school assesses its implementation of character education, its culture and climate, and the character growth of students on a regular basis.
Imagine Schools—who We Are
Imagine Schools is a national family of 51 nonprofit public charter school campuses located in seven states and the District of Columbia. Our schools serve approximately 29,000 students in K-12 classrooms, with 32 schools serving K-8 students, 11 serving K-5 students, and 3 serving a subset of K-8 students. Additionally, we operate 5 high schools; 1 is included in a K-12 campus and the other 4 are included in 6-12 campuses. Our high school graduation rate is 97%.
Almost 60% of the students we serve are in urban settings and 57% are eligible for free or reduced lunches. The overall demographics of our student population is 33% White, 30% Hispanic/Latino, 27% Black, and 10% Other.
Shared Values And Character Development
Imagine Schools’ shared values of justice, integrity, and fun provide guidance to all Imagine stakeholders in working together as a whole community to advance the vision and mission of our organization and schools. Our overarching shared values bind us together to establish a sense of belonging and community across our regions and schools, and guide everything we do, including our character development efforts. We have empowered our schools to determine their own specific core character values that best reflect our organizational shared values and serve the needs of their local school community.
Students and adult stakeholders understand the connection between building good character and their personal responsibility to our organization’s shared values and the community—whether that community is Imagine, the school, or society as a whole. The character core values are specifically stated in a character mission statement that supports each school’s mission statement, and are reviewed, reaffirmed, and revised as needed by the school community.
Our philosophy and approach to character development is comprehensive and modeled after Character.org’s11 Principles of Effective Character Education. Two main priorities are at the center of our character development efforts at our schools. Our first priority is to cultivate a caring school community and a culture of high expectations where all students and adults have a strong sense of belonging and feel supported as they learn and grow together. Creating caring classroom communities starts with an intentional focus on building and maintaining positive relationships among the students and adults in the school, as well as a focus on repairing those relationships when there is conflict.
In the past few years, Imagine Schools began a move toward adopting a restorative mindset that emphasizes positive relationships and the restorative practices that will help create school cultures that are inclusive, caring, and conducive to learning. Our national team has created an online course that provides personalized professional development in restorative practices, as well as tools for school leaders to facilitate collaborative discussions, monitor course completion, and assess understanding by school staff. Some of our schools at the frontline of restorative practices are Imagine South Lake (Florida), Imagine Andrews (Maryland), and Imagine Great Western (Ohio).
Our second main priority in character development is the teaching and learning of moral, performance, and civic character values, as well as the socioemotional competencies that will help students reach their full potential in school and in life. After stakeholders determine the core character values they will uphold as a school community, they unpack them into observable behaviors that become the expectations or norms for all school community members to live by and model. Some of our schools develop a mantra or touchstone to communicate the values that are important to them. For example, Imagine Kissimmee (Florida) received a Promising Practice for their Respect, Integrity, Safety, and Excellence, or RISE, mantra to remind students of the behavior expectations throughout the campus and in the community.
the Assessment Process
All Imagine schools measure success according to six measures of excellence: shared values, character development, parent choice, academic growth, economic sustainability, and school development. The following paragraphs describe the assessment process used at Imagine Schools through the lens of the character development measure of excellence and its alignment to Principle 11.
Every year, schools form committees that lead and maintain a focus for each measure of excellence. Imagine leadership teams guide their staff and committees through a collaborative, yearlong school improvement process to identify priorities in each measure of excellence. The process begins with a needs assessment, resulting in the development of goals, action plans, professional learning plans, and structures to evaluate the work and determine next steps. This collaborative process is documented in a School Excellence Plan and is considered a living document because it is constantly updated throughout the year through progress monitoring and reflection opportunities. National and regional leadership teams provide feedback to school teams throughout the school improvement process. The School Excellence Plan provides a legacy of the character development efforts, and other measures of excellence, to endure transitions in leadership and ensure continuity of initiatives.
Our schools use multiple quantitative and qualitative data points to evaluate the effectiveness of their character development efforts. As part of the School Excellence Plan process, they evaluate various data points to determine priorities at the beginning of the year and progress monitor the effectiveness of their action plans throughout the year. Some of the data points used to guide and evaluate our efforts in character development include: school climate surveys, attendance and behavior data, academic growth data, progress-monitoring observations, student goal setting and tracking, student character self-reflections and report cards, and focus groups and stakeholder testimonials.
Once a year, every Imagine school administers national school climate surveys to measure the opinions and perspectives of students, parents, and staff members regarding their school. Survey items gather data on the understanding of Imagine Schools’ shared values and on the effectiveness of character development efforts aligned to the two main priorities: school culture and the teaching and learning of moral, performance, and civic character values. Survey items about school culture relate to perceptions of safety, belonging, bullying, and respect. Survey items about the teaching and learning of moral character values center on perceptions of behavior, ability to resolve conflicts in peaceful ways, forgiveness, academic integrity, and quality of relationships with teachers and peers. Survey items relating to the teaching and learning of performance character values include perceptions of having a growth mindset, setting and tracking goals, quality of academic lessons to engage students’ curiosity and creativity, opportunities for collaboration, feelings about comfort level when asking questions, and teacher feedback.
Items related to the teaching and learning of civic character values center on perceptions of growing in empathy, leadership, digital citizenship, becoming a caring citizen of their community, and connecting what they are learning in school to life outside the classroom.
The combination of climate survey reports and other data points helps committees and leadership teams understand the areas of strength and improvement in each of our character development priorities. The process of disaggregating and analyzing climate survey data and other relevant data points, helps clarify and focus priorities.
Assessing the Integration of Character Development and Academic Growth
We understand the direct impact character development can have on academic growth and mastery; therefore, we monitor both measures equally. Academic growth and character development committees work closely together to integrate character into academic lessons. We encourage our schools to go beyond the stand-alone character lesson and integrate deliberate opportunities for practicing the character values within the academic content. Providing repeated experiences helps students internalize the character values they are learning and shapes their moral compass. Deliberate practice, of both academic and character formation skills, builds new connections in the brain and develops fluency and habits.
Local Assessments Are Individualized
School teams may develop their own in-house surveys to dig deeper into a specific survey data point. For instance, the national student survey item on respect (i.e., At this school, everyone [students and adults] treats each other with respect) was lower than expected for some of our schools, like Imagine Bell Canyon (Arizona). The staff there administered an in-house survey to clarify which relationship students felt was disrespectful (between students, between students and adults, etc.). This additional data point helped the school identify the real issue and created a focused action plan moving forward.
As part of our move toward restorative practices, our schools are more mindful and intentional in gathering attendance and discipline data. Some of our schools in Florida, like Imagine South Lake, Imagine Town Center, Imagine Kissimmee, Imagine West Melbourne, and Imagine South Vero, are going further than merely tracking total number of discipline infractions. They are also disaggregating this data by subgroups (grade level, teacher, location, demographical data, etc.) in order to uncover the root causes of behavioral issues. We are hopeful this level of analysis will help school teams assess the effectiveness of the implementation of restorative practices, curb suspensions and referrals, keep students in classrooms, and build the caring school and classroom communities they strive to cultivate.
Our Assessments Demonstrate Results
Imagine Schools has received 270 Promising Practices since 2010. Many of them recognized our schools for providing regular opportunities for students to reflect on their academic and character growth, as well as their behavior, according to the core character values their school promotes. For example, Imagine Weston (Florida) uses a character report card every quarter that allows students to self-assess according to the observable behavior expectations associated with each character value. Afterwards, teachers add their assessment and then conference with each student to provide feedback and guidance on areas of strength and improvement. Every quarter, parents receive the character report card along with the academic report card. At Imagine North Port Elementary (Florida), students reflect on their behavior and learn about self-regulation with SHARK Reflections, and students at Imagine South Lake (Florida), Imagine Town Center (Florida), and Imagine Kissimmee (Florida) set academic and character goals in their student data notebooks and lead data chats with parents during a “Data and Desserts” night twice a year.
Character development is a cornerstone of Imagine Schools’ educational vision and mission. Because of our commitment to “developing character, enriching minds,” every Imagine school is considered a school of character. Throughout the years, Character.org has recognized the organization as a District of Character and has recognized 21 Imagine Schools as National Schools of Character. Even though we are proud of our achievements, we understand that character development is a journey, not a destination. Our laser focus attention to the assessment process ensures our schools are implementing quality character development initiatives that have a positive impact on the students we serve. Imagine Schools is firmly committed to continuing our efforts to reflect, assess, grow, and refine our work in character development.
