Welcome to Project Character at School 21

1. Welcome to Project Character at School 21 Presented by: William Archacki Gerard Girstl Teresa Gorman Violca Memishaj Elizabeth Mulhearn

3. Project Character Project CHARACTER* was established as a result of a grant that was awarded by the U. S. Department of Education’s Character Education Program on July 1, 2008 to the Yonkers Public Schools, developed by James J. Carroll, Ph.D. The Co-Directors of Project CHARACTER are James J. Carroll, Ph.D. and Howard Krieger (under the direction of Fern Eisgrub), and the primary consultant is Joseph Montecalvo, the assistant director of Syracuse University Project LEGAL, a nationally validated character and civic education program, which is directed by Carroll. All three of them worked together on the original PCEP (Partnerships in Character Education Program) Project CHARACTER in Harlem from 2002—2006, which was also created by Carroll.

4. "You don't have to get sick to get better!" Your school may be doing fine, but superior education teaches to the whole child. It constantly improves the child as a person and equips the child to use well what it has learned in the bigger arena of life.

5. Our Mission... To take Character Education to a new level by motivating students, staff, faculty and parents to participate in a program, determined to better our School 21 Learning Community!

6. Your Mission... To get motivated and involved in Project Character, integrating it into your everyday classroom activities and lessons! If you choose to accept it?!

7. CHARACTER in Yonkers is CRITICAL Citizenship and High Academic standards, Reinforcing the Aspen Character Traits and Ethical Reasoning • Respect • Responsibility • Trustworthiness • Justice and Fairness • Caring • Civic Virtue and Citizenship Curriculum Restructuring implementation and Training integrating Computer Applications and learning standards.

8. Character Education Public Policy Analyst CEPPA Step 1: Define the School-wide Social Problem Step 2: Evidence of the Problem Step 3: Identify Causes of the Problem Step 4: Evaluate the Existing Policy Step 5: Develop 3 Policy Solutions Step 6: Select and Plan to Implement the Best Policy (Feasibility and Effectiveness)

9. As Your Team Leaders... • We will meet weekly to brainstorm new Character Education goals to meet the following topics: • Discipline problems • Students achievement • Participation in extra curricular activities • Parental and community involvement • Faculty and administration involvement • Student and staff morale • Overall improvements in school climate

10. Classroom Implementation • All classroom teachers participate in Project CHARACTER through implementing the Character Education Public Policy Analyst (CEPPA) on school-wide committees or to democratically formulate new classroom policies with their students. • Some content teachers will also use the original Public Policy Analyst to improve student achievement in relation to state content standards in subjects such as science, language arts and social studies. Self-contained elementary teachers are responsible for teaching these subjects. • Each of these subjects contains social problems: • In science, students might study about the West Nile Virus, acid rain, or pollution. • In social studies, students discuss problems related to immigration, terrorism, racism, or poverty. • In language arts, students read short stories that contain a wide variety of social problems. • The Public Policy Analyst (PPA) is a proven online tool that can help students to improve academic skills in numerous areas: problem solving and critical thinking, Internet research, and oral and written communications skills. • The original PPA has been adopted for Project CHARACTER by adding additional questions at various steps to have students focus on ethical reasoning as it relates to policy analysis.

11. Important Rules to Consider... • Treat everyone like they are a person. • Make others feel important by first finding out what it is that makes them feel important. • What you practice you will become. • Happiness given to others returns to you 100 times more. • Education and correct thought define your actions. • Your actions define YOU!