Character Education in SASD

For the last several years, all SASD schools have met together to create the Souderton Character Counts! Committee with hopes to better coordinate the character education efforts taking place across our district. Our goals are to: promote interaction between schools, embed character education into our ongoing programs, institute character initiatives for athletes, create monthly character themes to be addressed K-12, and help children set character goals for themselves.

We have established 8 themes for the year, 6 of which come directly from the Character Counts! pillars:

• September - Respect
  The essence of respect is to show regard for the worth of people.
• October - Citizenship
  Citizenship is defined as the duties, rights, conduct and responsibilities of the citizen of a school, community or country.
• November & December - Responsibility
  Responsibility involves being a dependable and reliable person that is committed to following though.
• January - Fairness
  Fairness implies adherence to a standard of rightness or lawfulness without reference to one's own feelings or inclinations.
• February - Caring (Gratitude)
  Caring involves having a deep concern for the welfare of others.
• March - Trustworthiness (Honesty)
  Trustworthiness involves being worthy to be relied upon, worthy to have confidence in because of consistent and honorable choices.
• April - Perseverance
  Perseverance involves the ability to work hard and follow through to completion in the face of failure and obstacles.
• May - Wisdom
  The essence of wisdom enables us to make reasoned decisions that are both good for us and for others.
• June - Humility
  Humility is both recognizing our inadequacies and abilities and pressing our abilities into service without attracting attention or expecting applause.

Our committee decided to add the virtues of perseverance, wisdom and humility to the six pillars, believing that these character traits are critical for our students’ school and life success.

We recognize that our efforts to help grow children of character cannot be accomplished in a vacuum. We need parents to support and continue conversations at home with your child(ren). For parents at the elementary level, we have created parent pages that will be sent home monthly. We know that the role of schools is to help make kids smart and to make them good, but we depend on parents and other adults in our community to continue the work beyond the school day. Thank you for helping in this most important endeavor.

Character education helps schools create a safe, caring and inclusive learning environment for all students and supports academic development. It fosters qualities that will help students be successful as citizens, in the workplace, and with the academic curriculum. It lays the foundation to help students be successful in all of the goals we have for our schools. It is the common denominator that will help schools reach all of their goals. Character education is not one more thing on our plates, but rather the plate itself!

Our district logo has the tag line, “A community where character counts!” We believe that only as we all work together to build character in our children will we become a community with character. Thanks for helping make this vision a reality.

Character Quote:
Watch your THOUGHTS.
They become WORDS.
Watch your WORDS.
They become ACTIONS.
Watch your ACTIONS.
They become HABITS.
Watch your HABITS.
They become your CHARACTER.
Watch your CHARACTER.
It becomes your DESTINY!

For more information about Character Education, please contact the Director of Pupil Services via telephone at 215-723-6061.