Utilizing Assessment to Sustain a Climate of Positive Character

Liberty Elementary School is a school of 1,110 kindergarten through fifth-grade students in Canton, GA, a community of 23,000 people located approximately 1 hour north of Atlanta. As a 2018 National School of Character, Liberty Elementary is continuously working to maintain a culture of character while celebrating being only the third school in Georgia to be named a National School of Character. The demographic profile of Liberty Elementary reveals that the school has a socioeconomic rate of 25.5% of students receiving free or reduced lunches. Students with disabilities comprise 12% and English language learners are 15.2% of the student population. Students receiving gifted education classes are 8.9%, with most teachers holding gifted endorsement credentials. The ethnicity of students includes 72% of students White, 15% Hispanic, and 11% Black. An attendance rate of 96.5% shows that most students miss 10 or less days of school annually. Liberty Elementary is located in a suburban setting, which includes a variety of housing options such as homes in subdivisions, dwellings on private land, rental properties, and subsidized housing. These dramatic differences in family living environs leads to a wide range of student needs.

In the following article, the authors give the reader an inside look into their school’s journey of using consistent assessment and reflection to make sound decisions to create a positive change in culture for its diverse population. It is through the continuous assessment of staff, students, and community members, that Liberty Elementary can support and sustain the school’s positive culture of character with an emphasis on students’ academic and emotional growth.

Liberty Elementary implements a schoolwide focus of developing positive relationships and embeds a purposeful plan to sustain a culture of character. It is the belief of Liberty stakeholders that a National School of Character practices daily character-building skills to encourage students to instill effective habits that will be important to them throughout their lives. Liberty Elementary shares the same contention as Hal Urban (2018) stated in his book Grandpa’s School of Life, that, “Good character is the foundation of a good life” (p. 12). This culture should be prevalent and permeate the physical facility and within structures of the classroom makeup. A big part of sustaining a climate with a positive culture is to continually look at how your school is implementing character during daily activities, then have conversations with stakeholders for how to improve. Principal Doug Knott and Assistant Principal Pam Green work together to help create the vision that proactively embedding character values within the school’s culture is the foundation to maintaining a successful and sustainable character education plan. Knott stated that, “Earning the National School of Character certification is not the end of our journey but only the beginning as we look to continuously improve upon our character-building strategies that will promote sustainability of a successful character program at Liberty.”

Being certified as a School of Character should not be the end-all for your school. There is always room to improve and to make changes that stakeholders believe are important to sustaining a culture of character. Therefore, there are steps schools can take through incorporating assessments that will lead to the improvement and sustainability of a positive culture of character.

Assessment can be viewed as gathering pieces of a puzzle to create a school wide picture of the character culture. At Liberty, we first start gathering information through a self-assessment process with some of our stakeholders (teachers, classified employees, students in 4th and 5th grade, and parents) to gain information. Green responds to the importance of assessment by stating,

The first self-assessment involved taking a close look at Character.org’s11 Principles of Effective Character Education during a faculty meeting and asking the staff to post their ideas on sticky notes and placing them on the posters displaying each of the 11 principles. Staff members were asked to post what we were already doing well and ideas for improvement. Since the posters were on the wall of the mailroom, all staff members could easily find them and reflect on the principles. The 11 Principles self-assessment and our liberty-created surveys were then completed by a smaller focus group of staff members, teachers, parents, and students.

After administering the assessments, the group defined as our character ambassadors, or the “Be Kind Committee” (with representatives from teachers, support staff, students, and community representatives), worked together to analyze the results. Parent Jenn Maloney, expressed that,

After an analysis of all assessments, the Be Kind Committee shared results with the faculty at meetings. After the faculty, parents, and students had time to reflect on the results, the school defined and then implemented steps for improvements.

From these initial assessments, the school first refined its mission and beliefs to reflect the importance of character. Next, the Liberty PRIDE Values were established for all school members to embed within school culture (PRIDE—Prepare and be punctual; Respect others and self; Inspire others by being kind; Display responsible behavior; Exhibit excellence and empathy). When the Be Kind Committee shared results from teacher surveys, teachers learned that they needed to incorporate positive language more purposefully throughout the school day. All school members, teachers as well as all others involved with our students during the day such as bus drivers, received training in positive language and promoting PRIDE values. Stacy Campbell, responsive classrooms trainer for the staff, stated that, “using purposeful, positive language, along with the inclusion of Morning Meetings and incorporating service learning during the school day, gave students and teachers opportunities to share with one another and to make meaningful relationship connections beyond academics.” Be Kind Committee member Tiffany Wilson, who created the Be Kind chant with fun hand motions based upon the PRIDE values, explained that,

Purposefully implementing positive language revealed an increase of those focusing on positive language from 84% of teachers implementing during the school year 2016-2017 to 93% during the school year 2017-2018. Additionally, student survey results were shared at the Student Leadership Team (SLT) meetings. The SLT fourth and fifth grade members then brainstormed ways to help address what their classmates identified as areas in need of improvement. Information was shared with parents through the parentteacher association Facebook page, parentteacher association newsletter, and principal’s email and social media accounts, so that parents could be involved and so that their voices could be heard.

Parent survey results revealed that while parent perceptions showed they believed they were being informed of PRIDE values and character education (90% in 2016-2017 and 93% in 2017-2018), there was still room for growth. We needed to carry over what students learned at school during morning meeting discussions to sharing these topics at home. Parent surveys reported as 63% in 2016-2017 had family discussions about morning meetings increased to 70% in 2017-2018. Mr. David Booth, a school council community member and parent, stated that,

Evaluator feedback from the 2017 School of Character report stated that Liberty needed more infusion of the PRIDE values (which were called PRIDE expectations at the time) and to give students ways to instill core values more intrinsically. After the Be Kind Committee reviewed this feedback, they took purposeful actions asking faculty to reflect on improvements needed to develop a stronger adherence to the 11 principles, promote targeted support for classroom morning meetings, and include more focused hallway displays, parent meetings, and newsletters to reinforce that our students were working on PRIDE values. Teachers also began to utilize natural opportunities for students to build intrinsic values by offering intrinsic types of rewards such as time to read with lower grade students, helping little ones in the mornings with getting to class, and giving up recess time to work with peers struggling academically.

Keeping current and making a conscious effort to seek improvement are key to sustaining a positive school culture. Action steps implemented at Liberty included, (1) being proactive through embedding a character focus during monthly meetings of the Be Kind Committee and SLT, weekly teacher team meetings, monthly meetings with faculty and team leaders, and meetings with the parent-teacher association and school advisory council, (2) embedding moral action opportunities (service learning and volunteering), and (3) keeping character a priority within the school structure.

Team and faculty meetings provide important avenues in making decisions for how to improve the character program at Liberty. At Liberty, monthly faculty meetings start with a “character dare” as various groups of teachers present team-building strategies and give resources to help teachers practice character-building within the classroom. Grade-level teams utilize book studies, with resources written by character experts, to help improve their classroom practices. For instance, after the school bought copies of Dr. Michele Borba’s Unselfie (2016), teams talked together about strategies and practices they could utilize daily to help students become more empathetic towards others. Borba writes, “Modeling, encouraging, expecting, and acknowledging a child’s moral courage helps instill it” (p. 189).

The Liberty School culture embeds the implementation of service learning, and it is a big part of how students and the community become actively involved in practicing compassion for others. Teachers believe that students make connections with community members through service learning projects (83% agreed during school year 2016-2017 and 90% in 2017-2018). Examples of local community projects have included third graders collecting items (food for dinners and toys for children) for homeless families that share a house (Nicholas House in Atlanta, GA), then presenting the families with their donations.Our fifth graders invited residents from a local senior center to attend a Valentine’s Day dance with the students not only dancing with their guests but also serving them refreshments and making special crafts for the participants to take back home with them. Second-grade students created more than 100 shoe boxes filled with cards they had made and helpful items such as note cards, candy, and toiletries, then delivered them to the seniors at a local assisted living home. Fourth grade students reached out internationally and sent bags filled with encouraging notes and school supplies for elementary students in Puerto Rico who had experienced loss due to a hurricane, then followed up with a Skype session to check on the students’ welfare. Taking an active approach in building character connections with people guides our students in building intrinsic values and having empathy for others.

Initial assessments given to the teachers before the character education initiative three years ago revealed that grade level discipline plans needed to be reviewed, so the Be Kind Committee analyzed results of the faculty’s perceived “must haves” and made recommendations for how to create discipline plans which were more positive and effective. Fifth grade lead teacher, Stephanie Hopersberger, reflected that,

Another recommendation was to create a school wide reflection piece that has students who misbehave completing reflection sheets, so they can think about and make a plan for change. Dr. Poindexter, counselor and response to intervention chair, stated that “working through the PRIDE (RTI) reflection sheet gives students the time they need to refocus on their behavior and make a better plan for what they should do going forward so that positive change can occur.” Also, students who misbehave in the lunchroom can go to a think desk and students in PE can sit under a “Settling Tree” to help them self regulate and think about changes they need to make before “getting right back in the game.”

The SLT fourth- and fifth-grade members also brainstormed ideas and made videos of themselves modeling expected behaviors throughout areas of the school. Thoughtful Thursday character segments were added to the student-produced morning news show where such SLT videos would be viewed and meanings for character words could be explained (e.g., What does showing respect for others and self look like at school? If you see someone crying on the playground, what does having compassion for another person look like?). Students in fourth and fifth grades use Liberty PRIDE Values Self-Assessments to rate themselves in working on each value, and then make decisions on how to work harder on those they ranked as low. When parent surveys revealed they knew little about Morning Meetings, teachers shared communications with parents about topics discussed during the school day so parents would have a point of reference for home conversations. Students' families also received PRIDE values on magnets for their homes so that school values could be better discussed at home as well.

Embedding moral action activities encourages students to instill positive character. Giving teachers time to make character a priority is very important. At Liberty Elementary, the master schedule includes time for students to have a morning meeting/community circle every day so that teachers and students can build relationships with one another. Students’ perceptions, as noted in their surveys, show how students notice that teachers have improved in encouraging core values (87% in school year 2016-2017 and 95% in 2017-2018) and that students are showing they are responsible for their actions (94% in 2016-2017 and 95% in 2017-2018). Although Howard Gardner (1999), professor of cognition and education at Harvard University, does not include morality as one of the multiple intelligences that he believes all people are comprised of to varying degrees, he does explain how morality deals with “well-entrenched habits” (p. 77). Daniel Goleman (1995), in his book Emotional Intelligence, expresses how there should be more focus on how emotionality is nurtured when he states, “as a society we have not bothered to make sure every child is taught the essentials of handling anger or resolving conflicts positively, nor have we bothered to teach empathy, impulse control, or any of the other fundamentals of emotional competence” (p. 286).

At Liberty Elementary School, teachers incorporate service projects as a way for students to participate in moral action activities and to practice learning to have compassion for others. Learn and serve projects are implemented within the curriculum and include an academic component at all grade levels. The SLT promotes schoolwide service projects to involve all school and community members. A recent example of a project that evolved into making a difference for children in Africa included Liberty students of all grade levels writing letters to soldiers oversees to help encourage them while being away from their homes for the holidays. This letter writing campaign, where students wrote 1,675 letters to those in the military, resulted in making a connection with a serviceman stationed in Djibouti, Africa. Through additional letters, emails, and Skype sessions, students and staff were able to make connections with the serviceman to support orphaned children living on the streets of Djibouti and being served through the humanitarian group Caritas. A unified effort by Liberty students, parents, and community partners resulted in the collection and mailing of 640 pounds of clothing, food, medical, and school supplies. The serviceman organized the delivery of the packages then shared pictures of the children receiving the supplies and commented how we would see in the faces of the children how this school wide endeavor of having empathy for others had made a difference. Parents have commented on surveys that they are impressed by the number of service opportunities students have been able to be a part of, and they appreciate how Liberty makes being kind a part of school life as they teach the value of good character. Judy Gallagher, a parent of a fifth grade student and one who has been actively involved in helping with service projects, stated that,

Students making important contacts with others have made a difference in their lives outside of the school day as students will take individual action to help others such as when Madison decided she would set up a stand to sell her “slime” creations, with all proceeds going to help the children at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Madison reflected that, “when I came up with the idea of selling lemonade to help St. Jude, I knew the kids with cancer needed help because I had a friend on my cheer team who had cancer. I decided by taking action I would be able to help other kids like my friend.”

In the last 5 years, Liberty has received nine Character.org Promising Practices Awards for its student support of others in the community and in their world. Keeping character building opportunities as a priority is essential in creating a culture where character is always first and foremost. While school wide morning meetings start the day with relationship building, Liberty also ends each day with a special “character brag” from the principal where he makes an announcement to acknowledge something showing good character witnessed and reported by a student, staff member, volunteer, visitor, or parent during the day. On the weekly “thoughtful Thursday” segment of our school news, a student leader will share a character topic and relate it to how students can become involved. In the main hallway, you will find the “character walk,” which is a series of interactive stops, using QR codes linked to videos created by students and staff. The character walk tells about the many components that make up the culture of character and gives new students and visitors a first glance of what is valued at Liberty. Therefore, in order for students to learn to be what Michele Borba stated in Unselfie as a “Changemaker,” or “someone who will recognize a social problem and is committed to create a solution” (p. 192), it is essential that positive character be practiced, those practices need to be analyzed and assessed, then reassessed, and changes made in order for a successful character development plan to permeate throughout the school and make a significant difference in the lives of the students we are put in charge to serve. Dr. Green, assistant principal, reflected on how much Liberty has grown along its character journey when she stated,

Through our journey to School of Character certification, the most critical realization has been that a culture of character exists within an ever-changing environment. Principal Doug Knott explains how assessment is essential to the sustainability of a school culture infused with character when he states

Simply maintaining a conservative approach to character implementation, before working towards the School of Character certification, did not effectively attend to the need for growth of our character practices or address the needs of our school community. A continuous focus on assessment allows our school to evolve with the needs of all stakeholders as we continue the purposeful work in providing a culture of character.