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Character flows at Cross Bayou

The elementary school wins a national honor, born of solid student-teacher relationships.

By RITA FARLOW
Published June 11, 2006

PINELLAS PARK - Cross Bayou Elementary School officials believe that developing good character is crucial to personal and academic success.

"You can't have, academically, high student achievement without character education," said Linda Fairman, who teaches physical education, "because if you don't have relationship building with children ... if you don't create that strong bond, the children will not have that belief in themselves."

The Character Education Partnership, a nonprofit coalition that advocates effective character education in K-12 schools, agrees. In May, Cross Bayou was notified it had been chosen as one of the partnership's 2006 National Schools of Character.

"We are just so excited about it. To be one of only 10 (schools chosen) in the U.S. and the only one in Florida, we feel very honored,'' said Cross Bayou principal Marcia Stone.

Chosen schools exemplify the partnership's 11 principles of character education, which include promoting core ethical values and creating a caring school community. (For a full list of principles, visit www.character.org.) Winning schools receive $2,000, used to further character education through school programs and mentoring partnerships.

In their evaluation, partnership officials noted that "the key to success at Cross Bayou appears to be the close relationships built between teachers and students."

Those types of relationships are the cornerstone to successful character education, said Richard Weissbourd, lecturer at the graduate school at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

"In the end, character education doesn't work unless the teachers have really good, strong, positive relationships with their kids. It's really about paying attention to the relationships,'' he said.

Weissbourd, whose research areas include children's moral development, said character education "should live and breathe in every part of the school.''

Character education is a nationwide movement in education that aims to promote student achievement through the creation of a school culture based on respect, responsibility, honesty, self-motivation and other such qualities. In 1997, Pinellas County schools started Commitment to Character, one of the nation's first programs dedicated to infusing character education into curriculum. Previously, it was taught as a separate class.

In 1999, the Florida Legislature mandated character education for grades K-5 and in 2002 required that it also be taught in middle and high schools beginning in the 2004-05 school year.

Cross Bayou teacher Sandi Banks said the school is dedicated to character education and has taken the concept to a higher level.

"Our teachers took it one step farther and now it's much more integrated in a lot of our subjects and you see it appearing all over the school," she said. "In a lot of schools, you might walk in and hear a character lesson, but in our case, it's integrated, it's embedded."

At Cross Bayou, faculty and staff members act as role models to help show kids appropriate behavior, a monthly character trait is emphasized on the Kids' TV show and integrated into classroom lessons, and students who make good choices are honored.

Each month, Stone introduces a book that fosters discussions on particular traits.

Character education at Cross Bayou has had measurable results, Stone said. Discipline referrals have decreased by more than 50 percent in the last year, which means students are spending less time in the office and more time in the classroom, she said.

The successes aren't just behavioral. "Our achievement has just gone up dramatically,'' Stone said.

The evidence:

n Over the past four years, reading achievement at Cross Bayou has increased from 49 to 76 percent of students reading at or above grade level.

n Achievement in math has jumped from 55 to 77 percent of students working at or above grade level.

The school will be honored at the Character Education Partnership's national forum Oct. 26-28 in Arlington, Va.

[Last modified June 11, 2006, 08:22:50]