In 2008 we focused on promoting a Caring Community and started a Caring Council in our School.  We believe that by creating a more caring atmosphere the number of bullyng related incidents would decrease.  The Caring Council promotes a caring atmosphere and they act as role models by making good choices.

The Caring Council is a group of fourth grade students who are positive role models and who help us  promote a more caring atmosphere.  They meet and greet students everyday,  they open the door for the students/parents as they come into the school each morning with a warm smile and a kind "good morning", they tutor students who teachers feel need extra help, they go into classrooms and read awards from parents to students and they assist teachers in school related tasks.

Stop and remember when you were in school and had to deal with upper classmen.  It could be a little intimidating at times.  We hope that we can lessen the intimidation factor by having the Caring Council around the school doing positive things.  We also hope this gives students the opportunity to build relationships so that they might have someone they feel they can turn to if they are being "targeted" or "bullied".

This year we also wanted the parents to be more involved in Our Caring Community.  At our first assembly we gave each student a "Kindness Coin".  When the student received the coin, he/she made a pledge to be part of "Our Caring Community".  They agreed to make better choices throughout the year.  We then gave two additional coins to the second, third, and fourth graders.  These coins were to be given to people who they felt were positive influences in their lives.  We asked the students for the names of the people they had chosen.  We then made a list of all the positive role models and displayed it on the cafeteria wall for everyone to see.  We called it the "Wall of Fame".  We also sent home a "Caring Community Award Certificate with every student.  This was a way for parents to recognize their child for doing an act of kindness and making better choices at home.  After completing the certificate it was returned to the school where the Caring Council took it into the student's classroom and recognized the student for his/her act of kindness.

We are very pleased with the results of our first year of having a "Caring Community/Caring Council".  With a more caring atmosphere this year and students making better choices, we were able to decrease the number of behavior reports from the previous year by 46%!  We realize there are still improvements to be made and we are hopeful that with your ideas and continued support we can accomplish this.  Thank you so much for being part of "Our Caring Community".