Greater Albany Public Schools

Greater Albany Public Schools

·  Liberty Elementary School (grades k-5)

·  Memorial Middle School (grades 6-8)

·  West Albany High School (grades 9-12)

Greater Albany School District has integrated Character Education into all aspects of education for all of its students. Students are taught character education in all content areas, fine arts, sports programs, student and leadership service projects, special education, and community-wide programs and business partnerships.

For the past five years, Liberty Elementary, Memorial Middle School and West Albany High School have worked in collaboration to design a model for teaching character education and increasing student achievement and improving student behavior. They have found that integrating the district character traits of Respect, Personal Responsibility, Self Discipline, Kindness, Trust, Honesty, Social Responsibility, and Courage into everyday curriculum and expectations has had a significant effect on school climate and environment not only in the schools but also in the community. No one curriculum was necessary. A variety of activities and programs with staff, students, parents, and community members were used.

Project achievements have been many and diverse:

1)  Staff workshops and conferences have created staff commitment and dedication to teaching and modeling character education.

2)  Fine arts (art and music classes) integration with character education themes and concerts. A constant visual display and performances of the eight traits have been very effective and influential.

3)  Character education has been integrated into the sports programs both during school, after school, and into the community sports programs.

4)  Student behavior and discipline has been positive.

5)  Student achievement is positive and individual student growth is constant.

6)  Parent involvement and commitment is supportive and strong.

7)  Character Education is a goal for the entire district with Board approval and encouragement. Each school has a character education goal. And this will continue after this grant.

8)  School/Business partnerships are involved in supporting character education.

9)  Money has been designated to continue the program.

10) Schools have a safe and trusting environment for all staff and students.

Project challenges have been very few!

1)  Continued work is needed to refine the systematic analysis of the data gathered.

Greater Albany School District will continue to use the information that is provided by the EVALUATION CHARACTER EDUCATION TOOL KIT, The Eleven Principals of Effective Character Education. The district believes that they have consistently assessed the character of the schools and the district, the staff growth as character educators and, student growth of character education as well as academic growth. They continue to improve on the statistical data analysis. However through many surveys over the years they strongly believe the following:

·  Climate in the district and just not in the three pilot schools is positive, and productive for student learning and the working environment is productive.

·  Staff, and community participation is very strong and committed to continuing the focus.

·  Students understand and can identify character education as important.

·  Student behavior and discipline is positive.

·  Student academic progress is positive.

·  A variety of programs are used to fit individual school needs.

·  Integration of character education is strong in content areas, and fine arts.

·  The district has become a model for other school districts in the state.

·  The district has reached their goal of a district-wide commitment to teaching character education.

·  Continued systematic evaluation throughout the district will be refined every year.

Character Education increases student academic achievement in several ways. By building personal responsibility, students are more likely to have ownership and be accountable for the outcomes of their decisions. Organization of school materials ensures that work will be completed both in and out of school, that the quality of it will be acceptable, and that time management will occur. The traits of honesty and integrity add to the likelihood that students’ work will be their own, free of plagiarism that impedes true learning. Self-discipline is essential as rigor increases through the years and the requirements for academic achievement become more challenging. Students who have initiative tend to pursue a greater depth of leaning. Flexibility helps with juggling academics with social, emotional and physical education that occurs in schools. Perseverance keeps the child working when the going gets tough, which it will if achievement is to happen. Effort is a trait that is essential in achievement and learning will not occur without it. Keeping in mind that intelligence equals effort over time, there is no question that the character trail of effort cannot be overemphasized. Common sense plays a big part in decision-making, and decision-making is necessary when taking tests, analyzing class content and many other academic functions. Problem solving is a character trait that is vital to achievement, especially in mathematics. Cooperation is demanded for class projects, sharing materials, doing labs and working together anytime with anyone.

While Greater Albany School District does not have empirical data directly linking character education to academic achievement, it seems that the character trait of common sense hold true. Clearly achievement is no accident. It takes personal responsibility, self-discipline, initiative, perseverance, organization, effort, problem solving, and cooperation. These are all what character is about. In Oregon, school budgets have plummeted in the past five years. In that time, Great Albany School District has made conscientious efforts as a character-educating district to teach children the skills they need to be successful. Class sizes continue to increase, physical plants are deteriorating, textbooks are getting out of date, computers are deteriorating, equipment is breaking and not being replaced, and the district is not keeping up with much of the nation in technology. Yet test scores continue to be steady or increase. The SAT and OSAT scores have not declined.

A) Memorial Middle School (MMS) Character Education Reflection

MMS has seen several changes since using character education as part of the school goal and focus.

Student behavior has improved dramatically. This improvement is documented in several ways. First, the anecdotal feedback from teachers is very positive. Most teachers say that student behavior is better than it was before. Teachers credit the character education program for much of this. Specifically, 7th grade teachers say that students come to their grade with the experience of the 6th grade Character Education class and that helps them improve their behaviors, especially in the areas of Respect, Kindness, and Personal Responsibility.

In addition, on responses to staff surveys, there is nearly 100% agreement that teaching Character Education in School is important and effective. This data is collected via annual staff surveys.

Fewer students have been expelled from MMS and students have received the highest scores ever in reading in spring of 2002. That was followed up by another set of strong scores in 2003. In math, MMS scores improved 9% (in students meeting or exceeding the benchmark standard score of 231) from 2002 to 2003, indicating the highest score ever recorded by MMS students in 2003. Again, it is hard to tie these academic improvements directly to Character Education. MMS staff believes there is a connection.

Disciplinary data shows the number of out-of-school suspensions related to behavior. There has been a significant decline in out-of-school suspensions at all five secondary schools between 1989 and 2002. Memorial and West Albany High Schools have less than 30% of the out-of-schools suspensions last year, as compared to 4 years earlier. This figure may be a little misleading because both schools have resorted to more in-school suspensions, an alternative to out-of-school suspensions. In-school suspension is not counted on the discipline data report. Discipline actions that caused students to miss school have been the established criteria for tabulating disciplinary data.

Parent involvement is very strong at all three schools. Liberty Elementary Community/School Carnival theme and activities are strong and consistent. Parents are very active and supportive of the Monday Morning Gatherings, classroom volunteering and assemblies focused on character Education. Staff development is also used to integrate character education in the reading and social studies curriculum. A fifth grade class has started a Peace Council centered on helping others. The students were also featured on a Eugene TV station for their activity and connection to social responsibility. They have also been featured in local newspapers.

At Memorial Middle School and West Albany High School, continued efforts are made to enhance the sportsmanship after school pledge, Open House activities, staff development activities for staff and student participation, volunteer program, attendance reinforcements, parent forums, parent club, and site council activities. WAHS will also expand the ropes course by completing the climbing wall. Liberty and Memorial students will be able to participate in those trust-building activities associated with the wall.

The disciplinary, dropout, and attendance data demonstrate consistent improvement and focus on student success. OSAT scores are very good and show consistent improvement for all three pilot sites and Liberty received a rating of “exceptional.” District surveys continue to show strong support for the pilot schools.

B) West Albany High School (WAHS) reflection

Over the past five years character education has been instrumental in developing an environment that enables students to grow in the knowledge and skills required in the twenty-first century. This environment also affirms the dignity of students, and empowers students to confidently assume productive roles in the school and society.

1) F.L.A.S.H. (Freshmen Learning with Seniors Helping)

WAHS has developed and carried out a program called F.L.A.S.H. (Freshmen Learning with Seniors Helping). The program has 70 outstanding senior students mentoring and teaching weekly lessons on the eight character education traits: Personal Responsibility, Courage, Honesty/Integrity, Self-Discipline, Social Responsibility, Justice, Kindness, and Respect. The ratio of seniors to freshmen is two seniors to every ten freshmen. An example of one of the lessons on Social Responsibility: The senior’s talk about social responsibility and what that looks like. The seniors and freshmen together come up with a project that they would like to do at the school or for the community involving social responsibility. They carried out these plans after school. Some FLASH groups planted flowers in the school courtyard, picked up garbage, raked leaves for the elderly, washed windows for neighbors, worked at Safe-Haven Animal Shelter, rang the bell for the Salvation Army, collected food for FISH, to name a few. The freshmen in the school-wide surveys have said that they have enjoyed learning from their peers about real-life situations involving the character traits. Money was spent to buy the FLASH senior mentors t-shirts and to do training for them on mentoring.

2) Don’t Laugh at Me

A group of leadership students and their advisory teachers got together and created a skit about being accepting of others and their differences. They performed this skit at three middle schools. They sing the song “Don’t Laugh at Me” in their presentation as well. It is a very powerful program and has served as a great tool for teaching and modeling character education at the middle schools. Money was spent for a retreat to plan the activities and develop the script. The following is from student comments:

“I will miss the Don’t Laugh at Me project more than any other activity that I participated in high school. Don’t Laugh at Me was unique in the fact that it served a dual purpose for me. On the one hand there was the obvious reason of promoting tolerance and acceptance and teaching students not to stereotype. But at the same time, it taught me how a group of people can take a basic idea and turn it into something that they all believe in and helped to create. I was fortunate to be a member of Don’t Laugh at Me and I will always cherish the fun time we had in both creating and presenting this program and the impact that it had on others.”

“Don’t Laugh at Me was, in my opinion, the most important thing we did in leadership. We were able to affect thousands of kids over the course of a few years, and that is amazing. I hope that the next group to take over has as much fun as we did and is as successful.”

3) Voices Presentation

The leadership class performed voices of people with different social, economic and family problems. This program is done with a large sheet that students stand behind and read a script. You can only see each student’s shadow and it is done in total black and white. The presentation was shown to all freshmen students. Character education money was spent on supplies and development of the production. A freshman English teacher said she had her freshmen write reaction papers on the impact that the presentation had on them. Some of the students commented:

·  “The voices presentation made me realize that other people have issues in their lives just like I do and we should not judge people before we really know what they are going through. I will not make unfair judgments in the future and will try to be come compassionate and understanding. We also need to think before we speak for our comments make lasting impacts on those around us. Intent does not equal impact!”

·  “I think you guys did a great job representing all sorts of situations. The one about abuse got to me the most. I personally know people that have had that. I can imagine how hard it is for them. I know that as their friend you can’t do much, but just be there for them. The only thing I would add to your play is maybe something about molestation. It’s more common than you probably think. You guys did an awesome job!”

·  “This was the coolest thing I have ever done. I was the voice for a pregnant teenager and the shadow for someone who committed suicide because of feeling alone and depressed. I think it had a huge impact on the students who see it. I loved it when I saw it, but it was even more fun to actually act it out. It meant a lot to me, because I am going through many of those feelings now. It relates to a lot of people, which helps.”

·  “This is my first year participating in voices. During the play I was a shadow for someone who always stresses being perfect. This was a moving play that touched many people. I enjoyed putting it on.”