Students practice cooperation during science  field day.

Independence’s CHARACTERplus Traits January Respect February Cooperation March Initiative April Perseverance May Self-Control June Courage July Loyalty August Ambition September Responsibility October Integrity November Citizenship December Compassion On the Web CHARACTERplus: www.characterplus.org Independence School District: www.indep.k12.mo.us

Students and staff embrace the CHARACTERplus program.

Peace Pavilion Building Character

Give the Children’s Peace Pavilion at International Headquarters in Independence, Missouri, a high five.

Slap! Awwright!

The pavilion deserves the celebration for its role in bringing a character-development program to every building in the 14,000-student Independence School District. Even more impressive, the reception in Independence could pave the way into other districts throughout the Kansas City, Missouri, area.

The program, CHARACTERplus, seeks to develop positive traits in students by focusing each month on a different quality—things like respect, initiative, and perseverance. The goals: fewer discipline problems, better grades, and more sensitivity among students.

Of course, such a program doesn’t work without buy-in from the staff—and students. Bridger Middle School in Independence reflects that support with banners, bulletin boards, student activities, and classroom assignments.

For example, one bulletin board, bright yellow with a fire-engine-red border, displays dozens of brightly colored, construction-paper hands, each holding a positive message.

Students and staff members pin the hands to the board in appreciation when others display the highlighted traits. Appropriately, organizers put two labels on the board: “CHARACTERplus Traits” and the “High Five Club.”

The messages scrawled on the hands express many trait-related sentiments:

“Thanks for the lunch money.”
“Thanks for lending books.”
“Thanks for helping students get the right answers.”
“Thanks for helping another student with homework after school.”

Outside, nine seventh-graders apply the trait of cooperation as they use napkins, paper plates, rubber bands, tape, and an egg to compete in a science field day. Their task: Devise a way to use the materials as protection so an egg won’t shatter when dropped from five feet.
The students gather, their dialogue echoing their dedication.

“Everyone’s equal,” Brooke Summers reminds her teammates. “You all participate, and everything is the same for everyone.”
Others chime in:

“Make a big circle so that everyone can help.”
“Let’s build a parachute.”
“We need armor.”

None of this would have happened if not for the Children’s Peace Pavilion. Here’s how it began:

Several years ago staff members took the pavilion’s programs into Independence schools, visiting twenty to thirty classrooms a year. The response was great, but a daunting problem remained. How could leaders expand the program?

Church leaders decided to operate through a nonprofit board. They set it up and hired a consultant. Soon, the consultant found a ton of peace-education initiatives. One in particular caught her eye: CHARACTERplus, which originated about twenty years earlier in the St. Louis, Missouri, area but had not spread to the western half of the state. Board members felt many of its goals mirrored those of the peace pavilion.
“We said, ‘My goodness this is a winner,’ and we wondered if the Independence School District would be interested,” said Larry Norris, a board member. “So the school district put together a task force. It also enlisted Superintendent Jim Hinson.

“He was really excited and said it might be something he’d be interested in doing district-wide, instead of piloting it.… The church and Children’s Peace Pavilion could burst in pride for having a major role in it,” Norris said.

Hinson put it more bluntly: “Without them we wouldn’t have CHARACTERplus today. It’s vital to the students and family. The response has been far greater than we ever anticipated.

“I can walk into any of our schools and catch students in the hallway and ask, ‘What is the character trait of the month?’ and they know.”
The program soon spread beyond the schools. Churches, banks, grocery stores, and other parts of the community now plaster the character traits on signs, Web sites, even billboards.

“I think the message is saturating the community,” Hinson said.

And if he has his way, it will grow even more. He recently began a term as president of the Cooperating School Districts of Greater Kansas City, a group representing twenty-two districts. He intends to use his position and the impact in Independence “as a springboard everywhere.”
The program in Independence didn’t launch until January, and Hinson said it’s too early to quantify the results. But anecdotal evidence abounds.

“We’ve seen people having awareness that we are looking for these qualities in the kids,” Bridger Principal Belinda Woodson said. “You’ll be walking down the hall and hear, ‘Oh-oh, remember this month it’s self-control.’”

Stacia Wilson, a Bridger counselor, noted that teachers seek to blend the traits into classroom efforts, such as writing assignments. She expects even bigger things with the start of the school year this month.

“Once we get more stable…it will help with adults role-modeling for the kids and helping hold the kids accountable in a positive way to model these traits.”

She also expects to see improvement in student behavior.

“Before all of these positive traits, our only outlet was discipline,” she said. “Now we can focus on the positives of treating kids well.”

—Greg Clark reporting