It’s all part of Endeavor Elementary’s “Kindness Month” and the school’s positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) program, which is proving both popular among students and effective, said school leaders.
Led by Endeavor Assistant Principal Ben Schneider and Counselor Amy Hauer, the effort recently kicked off with a shared exercise across all grade levels during a recent meeting at the West Chester Twp. school, said Lakota officials.
“One by one, every single student contributed to a shared document that in the end housed 700-plus ideas for random acts of kindness they could do at school and out in their community,” said school officials.
“From there, four giant posters — one for each grade level — were printed (and displayed) to capture a total of 100 random acts of kindness suggested by students. They included everything from thinking before doing something to staying positive during a game that you lose.”
Endeavor students were challenged to “get caught” doing all 100 acts throughout February.
Students and staff alike could call out a colleague, peer, teacher or student whom they spy doing any one of the acts on the poster. For each act reported to the office, another sticker got added to one of the posters.
“It’s really been something special to witness,” said Schneider, noting that the main goal was to reinforce kindness as a habit and also something that gets noticed and praised.
Schneider said he also wanted to create something that every single student could take an active role in.
Yet-to-be-revealed prizes await the students who accumulate the most acts of kindness stickers but the tangible rewards aren’t the goal, said students, who emphasized the altruistic lessons learned.
“You just do something kind and if it happens to be on the board, then it’s good luck,” said Endeavor third grader Nora Theiss.
“Sometimes you just do something and no one sees it and that’s okay,” added classmate Nora Okel.
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