School shows character breeds success
Cross Bayou Elementary wins a national honor, born of solid student-teacher relationships.
By RITA FARLOW
Published June 12, 2006
Cross Bayou Elementary School administrators think developing good character is crucial to personal and academic success - and a national group focused on character education has singled the school out for an honor unique in Florida.
"You can't have academically high student achievement without character education," physical education teacher Linda Fairman said, "because if you don't have relationship building with children ... if you don't create that strong bond, the children will not have that belief in themselves."
The Character Education Partnership agrees. The partnership is a nonprofit coalition that advocates effective character education in K-12 schools. In May, Cross Bayou was notified that it had been chosen as one of the partnership's 2006 National Schools of Character.
"We are just so excited about it," said Marcia Stone, principal at Cross Bayou, which is in Pinellas Park and draws students from Largo, Belleair and parts of unincorporated Clearwater. "To be one of only 10 (schools chosen) in the U.S. and the only one in Florida, we feel very honored."
Schools chosen for the honor exemplify the partnership's 11 principles of character education, which include promoting core ethical values and creating a caring school community. For a full list of principles, visit www.character.org.)
Winning schools receive $2,000 to be used to further character education through school programs and mentoring partnerships.
In their evaluation, partnership officials noted that "the key to success at Cross Bayou appears to be the close relationships built between teachers and students."
Those types of relationships are the cornerstone to successful character education, said Richard Weissbourd, lecturer at the graduate school at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
"In the end, character education doesn't work unless the teachers have really good, strong, positive relationships with their kids," he said. "It's really about paying attention to the relationships."
Weissbourd, whose research areas include children's moral development, said character education "should live and breathe in every part of the school."
Character education is a nationwide movement in education that aims to promote student achievement through the creation of a school culture based on respect, responsibility, honesty, self-motivation and other such qualities. In 1997, Pinellas County schools started Commitment to Character, one of the nation's first programs dedicated to infusing character education into curriculum. Previously, it was taught as a separate class.
In 1999, the Florida Legislature mandated character education for grades K-5 and in 2002 required that it also be taught in middle and high schools beginning in the 2004-05 school year.
Cross Bayou teacher Sandi Banks said the school is dedicated to character education and has taken the concept to a higher level.
"Our teachers took it one step farther, and now it's much more integrated in a lot of our subjects and you see it appearing all over the school," she said. "In a lot of schools, you might walk in and hear a character lesson, but in our case, it's integrated, it's embedded."
At Cross Bayou, faculty and staff members act as role models to help show kids appropriate behavior, a monthly character trait is emphasized on the Kids' TV show and integrated into classroom lessons, and students who make good choices are honored. Each month, Stone introduces a book that fosters discussions on particular traits.
Character education at Cross Bayou has had measurable results, Stone said. Discipline referrals have decreased by more than 50 percent in the last year, which means students are spending less time in the office and more time in the classroom, she said.
The successes aren't only behavioral.
"Our achievement has just gone up dramatically," Stone said, citing improvements in both reading and math.
The school will be honored at the Character Education Partnership's national forum Oct. 26-28 in Arlington, Va.