Salt Brook School Selected as National Schools of Character Finalist

Students at Salt Brook Elementary School may be learning all about Mathematics, English, History and Science throughout the year. But staff members at Salt Brook are also building character in their students, teaching them to always do the right thing.

This is evident from the yearlong Salt Brook Character Education Program, which encompasses a new theme each year, not to mention the school’s recent selection as a 2011 New Jersey State School of Character and selection as a 2011 National Schools of Character Finalist.

“I think the most important thing is so much emphasis is focused on state test scores and academics. Not that academics aren’t important – they are so important – but developing the child’s character is probably the most important out of anything,” said Jeannie Maier, Principal of Salt Brook Elementary School. “Once they get into college, and yes, they want to see strong state scores and they want to see this and they want to see that, but they want to know what type of person you are.”

Maier, along with Salt Brook staff members, went through a lengthy application process for the initial recognition as a State School of Character, which is determined by New Jersey Alliance for Social, Emotional, and Character Development (NJASECD).

“They have 11 principles of Character Education and you had to write a page of information explaining how your school achieves each principle and then after the page of explanation, you had to provide pages of artifacts,” Maier said. “The artifacts could range from faculty meeting agendas where you talked about character education to things from our website to PTA meetings. I had lesson plans from teachers where they talk about it in the classroom. So depending on what principle it was, depends on what artifacts you would match up to that principle. You had to scan all these artifacts in and almost make a collage.”

Maier and School Counselor Erika Ledder went to a technical session to learn more about the application process before assembling a core team of application writers — Maier, Ledder, Assistant Principal Joseph Harvey and Technology Coordinator Kelly Villa — who began brainstorming with the Salt Brook staff.

“We first brainstormed with the staff at a faculty meeting in October. We told them what we were doing, we had big pieces of paper out there with one principle on each and then we said to the staff, ‘go around, read the principle and write anything you have done or are doing in your classroom that fits under this principle,’” Maier said. “We took all information [from the staff] and compiled it, and we actually started writing. It took us I’d say about three or four weeks to put together our first draft by the end of October, beginning of November.”

Maier said the first draft was about 35 pages, which exceeded the 26-page limit, leaving the core team of writers with the task of figuring out what information to cut.

“We have so many things to include and it was ‘what can we cut out, what absolutely has to be there, how do we edit and how do you explain the program and give the integrity of it without putting too much out?’ because you can only have so many pages,” Maier said.

Students, parents and staff members also filled out surveys, which included questions that were meant to test the climate of the school. Results from those surveys were also included on the application.

To complete the application, Maier and Harvey worked on it almost every day, while Villa and Ledder came in and out of the office to work on the application when not handling their other student responsibilities.

“A lot of times, we would give [Villa and Ledder] drafts and say ‘we edited it, take it home and see how we can edit it more.’ Then, once we all edited it again, we would come back together as a committee to see where all of our edits were,” Maier said. “Once we had the final draft done, we had to give it to a review panel and that review panel consisted of the core team I mentioned, the PTA president, two parents, our Assistant Superintendent and a Board of Education member.”

Maier said this review panel had to score the application based on how well it matched up with the 11 principles.

“That scoring came out excellent. The total average for the score could’ve been a 4.0 and our average came to a 3.81. We didn’t have anything lower. I think our lowest principle score was a 3.66,” Maier said.

Maier said it sometimes takes schools more than one application cycle to be selected as a school of character and usually takes schools close to a year to put the application together.

Two months was all it took for Maier and her staff to put the school’s first application together, which was submitted on Dec. 1. On Jan. 26, Maier, Salt Brook Staff members and students learned the good news.

“I’m really proud of the staff here because we came together and we put it together really in two months and it wasn’t hard putting together, it was time consuming. The hardest part was ‘what can we cut out?’ because we had so much information to include,” Maier said. “'How do we narrow it down to answer their questions thoroughly, but thoroughly explain what we’re doing?'”

Because of Salt Brook’s recognition as a State School of Character, the school was automatically placed into a pool for the Character Education Partnership (CEP) 2011 National Schools of Character (NSOC) program. Salt Brook was named as a finalist on March 1, 2011 and final results should be released by May.

CEP selected Finalists from a pool of 140 applicants. With 50 Finalists in total, CEP is expecting to select a record number of National Schools of Character.

“We know that amazing things happen at schools of character—students treat one another and their teachers with more respect, violence and bullying decrease, substance abuse declines, disruptive behavior diminishes, teacher morale and retention improve, school pride and parental involvement increase, achievement gaps narrow, and overall academic achievement goes up,” stated CEP President and CEO Joe Mazzola. “Schools of character contribute to a nation of ethical citizens who know what is right, have the moral courage to do what is right and, at the same time, pursue excellence. We simply need more of them.”

Students and staff members at Salt Brook have a lot to be proud of, and rightfully so with the school’s Character Education Program, which played a large role in the school's application for selection as a State School of Character and National Schools of Character Finalist.

Maier said the Character Education Program has a new theme each year, which is consistently reinforced by the staff throughout the year in various ways. 

This year’s theme, Do the D.A.P., stands for Dignity and Pride. At the beginning of each year, all students at every grade level are taught five core lessons in the classroom, one lesson each week, Maier said. In October, the theme for the year is announced at the big kickoff event.

Maier said the one surprise at the kickoff event this year, besides the theme, was a visit from high school students who went to Salt Brook Elementary School.

"We asked our high school for students that had graduated from Salt Brook and went through our theme program before, students that show leadership and are doing the right thing to come down and be our surprise guests because we always have some sort of surprise for the kickoff,” Maier said. “It has to be fun, it has to be exciting. It has to be entertaining and it has to be huge to get the kids real excited about the theme.”

Maier said some high school students who attended play a sport, play in the band, excel in the Art Department, excel academically or have younger siblings at Salt Brook.

“We had all different types of high school students come down and they were the ones that came running into the gym carrying the new theme banner and telling everyone what our theme was,” Maier said. “What they did was talk about how they showed Dignity and Pride at the high school and they related that to when they were at Salt Brook and everything they learned there, and now that they are at the high school, this is how they show Dignity and Pride.”

Maier said the kids loved it, giving many high school students the “D.A.P.”, a fist bump, after the assembly. High school students even stuck around after the assembly, visiting with students in their classrooms.

“We don’t believe in giving prizes, we don’t give out ‘caught you doing a good thing’ stickers, we don’t buy into that philosophy over here. We just think that they should pick up garbage off the floor because it’s the right thing to do. But we would always give them a high five,” Maier said. “But this year, the teachers wanted to use the fist bump. So when we researched it, we found out a fist bump is called a D.A.P., which stands for Dignity and Pride, and that’s how we came up with our theme. The kids really love the theme.”

At the kickoff event, Maier said there was also a multimedia presentation with photos of Salt Brook staff members doing the D.A.P., which was played for the students. At the end of the year, Maier said there will be another event to close out this year’s Character Education Program with another multimedia presentation. This time, though, the pictures will be of Salt Brook students doing the D.A.P.

Although the Character Education Program has been an integral part of education at Salt Brook for a while now, a new tracking system was just implemented in January.

“We have a Salt Brook Tiger and one of our staff members dresses up as the tiger and went around to the classrooms and explained the tracking system that we started in January,” Maier said. “Especially with the little kids, even though they don’t get recognized with prizes or rewards, sometimes if they do a kind thing that really stands out, they write their name on a little fist bump and we put it on the wall [in the front hallway].”

When each grade level gets 10 fist bumps in a row, they receive a gold fist bump to replace it, Maier said.

“It’s something simple, just a little tracking system, but for the little kids, they actually need to see it,” Maier said. “They are in the front hallway, by the 'Do the D.A.P.' display. Sometimes it’s ‘a group of third grades,’ sometimes just the individual name. It depends, and sometimes there are students who do really kind things and they don’t want their name on it so it may just say ‘a fifth grade student.’”

Overall, the Character Education Program at Salt Brook really sets the climate for the school each year. Staff members consistently reiterate to students, in a myriad of ways, why it is so important to always do the right thing. The only difference this year is the school received its’ hard earned recognition as a State School of Character and a 2011 National Schools of Character Finalist.

“If you provide students with a safe, supportive and fun environment, their scores are going to be high because they’re going to want to learn because they’re excited about learning,” Maier said. “That’s always been our main focus, and that’s why we don’t give out prizes or rewards because we don’t want kids doing the right thing because they’re going to get 10 tickets to get a bike. We want them doing it just because that’s the type of person you should be.”