Carbon School District Press Release
The celebration of students this year has been a big goal at Bruin Point Elementary. But rather than just celebrate those that exhibit good behavior, the school is finding ways to celebrate all students.
“This is not an ‘everyone gets a trophy’ kind of thing; it’s about goal setting and achieving goals,” said Bruin Point Elementary Principal Dina Wise. “At the end of each quarter, we have a celebration to recognize all students and the progress they are making towards their SMART goals in the areas of reading, behavior and attendance. We had an assembly at the end of the second quarter where every student came to the front of the gym and shared a success or a celebration in their life. Then, the student body cheered for them.”
In an effort to build connections inside and outside of school and to foster the growth of the school family, there are also celebrations going on in classrooms. The school has established that so the kids can celebrate anything in their lives from achievements to family matters.
“We are always focusing on positive behavior,” she stated. “We just rolled out a way to recognize students for being safe, kind or helpful through the use of Bear Sightings. All teachers worked as a team to create mental models of what safe, kind and helpful behavior would look like and sound like. When the adults in the building notice students being safe, kind and helpful, they get a Bear Sighting ticket.”
Each quarter, the school concentrates on a different social-emotional skill. This quarter, they have been teaching and practicing Positive Intent (seeing the best in others) and the Power of Love.
“So, if someone does something to upset you, instead of thinking that they did it intentionally, we ask students to try and reframe their thinking about what happened,” she explained. “We often don’t know what reasons people have for doing something and we are trying to teach the kids to talk to each other and figure it out using the power of love.”
To reinforce these skills, the student council came up with an idea for students to look for and recognize kindness in others. They created a Kindness Tree for the cafeteria. When students notice someone else being kind, they fill out a “Kindness Heart” and it gets added to the tree. The idea is to teach students to see the best in others.
They have also spent time teaching students to “wish each other well.”
“We rub our hands together, then fold them onto our chest and tell them that we wish them well,” demonstrated Wise. “At our weekly morning assembly on Fridays, we ask students to tell us about things they are doing or competitions they are in and then the student body gets together and wishes them well.”
Teachers also do this as part of their morning routines when students are absent or have been sick.