After a year of working together as a team of teachers, staff, students, families, counselors, and district staff, we have chosen to use RESPECT as our school’s social responsibility.

Our primary goal for the upcoming school year is to cultivate a positive and inclusive school community where every member feels a strong sense of belonging. We will achieve this by intentionally teaching, modeling, and practicing our core values of Respect for Self, Respect for Others, and Respect for Our Place.

Key Themes & Action Items:

Theme 1: Fostering Respect for Self

Goal: To help students develop self-awareness, recognize their unique strengths, and build confidence and resilience.

Action Items:

• Building Positive Identities: Teachers will use activities like "Identity Maps" and "Personality Trees" to help students explore and share their unique backgrounds, interests, and strengths.
• Social-Emotional Learning (SEL): We will implement tools like the "Mood Meter" to help students identify, understand, and regulate their emotions. This will be a daily practice to build self-awareness.
• Goal Setting: Students will be encouraged to set personal goals for the year through activities like the "Recipe for a Great Start to the School Year," helping them to take ownership of their learning and growth.

Theme 2: Cultivating Respect for Others

Goal: To build strong, positive relationships among students and staff, and to create a kind, empathetic, and collaborative classroom environment.

Action Items:

• Creating Classroom Community: The first week of school will be dedicated to community-building activities, such as partner interviews and class puzzle murals, to help students connect with their new classmates.
• Co-Creating Expectations: Teachers and students will work together to brainstorm and establish clear, positive classroom expectations. This collaborative process ensures that all students understand and feel a sense of ownership over their classroom environment.
• Explicitly Teaching Positive Behaviors: We will use a consistent, school-wide approach to teach, model, and practice respectful behaviors. This includes using common language across the school and "catching students doing the right thing" by providing specific, positive feedback.

Theme 3: Nurturing Respect for Our Place

Goal: To foster a sense of shared responsibility for our classrooms, our school, and our community.

Action Items:

• Defining Expectations for Common Areas: We will explicitly teach and review the expected behaviors for shared spaces like hallways, the playground, and the gym. This will be reinforced through practice and visual reminders.
• Visual Representation of Our Values: Students will participate in creating visuals, such as bulletin board collages and skits, that represent our school-wide language of "Respect for Self, Others, and Our Place." This will serve as a constant, visible reminder of our shared values.
• Community-Building Assemblies: We will hold school-wide assemblies to celebrate our community and showcase student work related to our theme of respect, further strengthening our shared sense of place and purpose.

We look forward to entering our next school year with a focus on developing skills and community expectations that highlight the respect with give each other and our community.