Featured School: Taylor Middle School

Taylor Middle School

In our role as the State Coordinator for Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana for Character.org’s State School of Character award, we provide evaluators to review applications based on their 11 Principles of Character Education which can be found here. We are highlighting the following school for a Character Education practice that demonstrates one or more of these principles.

Taylor Middle School of the Three Rivers Local School District houses grades five through eight and has shared with us a Character Education Practice that they are particularly proud of. Dave Henderson, a school counselor at Taylor Middle School, shared with us this practice and his pride in his school.

“Taylor Middle School strives to create a more positive school culture and learning environment that supports academic achievement,” writes Henderson. The school selects nine different character qualities each year and studies one per month during the school term.

The practice submitted is their recognition program for their character quality of the month. “Teachers and staff are encouraged to select a student that exemplifies that particular quality.” The selected students are announced at the end of the month and presented with a certificate. Once per quarter, the school holds an award ceremony where the parents of the students recognized for the character qualities that quarter are invited to attend, and the names are read before a short reception.

This practice best relates to the key indicator in Principle 10 in which the school engages families in the character initiative. This practice helps to make parents aware of and involve them in the character education effort.

We hope that by highlighting Character Education practices like this one, they not only inspire schools to enact these or similar programs but also to understand the evaluation process for the awards and make it easier for schools to apply. If you are interested in more information on applying for the State School of Character Award or would like to become an evaluator for the awards, please contact Jacqueline Schmucki at 513-973-6984 or jschmucki@charactercincinnati.org.

Would you like to be the next featured school? Apply by clicking here. Each school chosen to become a featured school will receive a set of Biggest and Brightest Light books and the curriculum guide or a pair of Doug Coates books, depending on the age group. The Character Council will also work with local media to highlight the practices of the school.

If you have any questions about this practice, the other practices mentioned, or Taylor Middle School, please direct them to Dave Henderson, School Counselor at 513-467-3500 x1120 or dhenderson@trlsd.org.