Edgewood named an Emerging School of Character
While teaching reading, science, and math skills has long been the backbone of the educational system, some schools go beyond teaching children the traditional three R’s to nurture the character of its students.On Oct. 15, Edgewood Middle School was acknowledged as a leader in character education when the school was presented with the Emerging School of Character award by the Ohio Partners in Character Education for its annual Empowerment Day event.
According to Michelle Nye, Wooster City School District coordinator of pupil services and former Edgewood dean of students, Edgewood was one of only six schools across the state to receive this prestigious award, which recognizes school initiatives that promote quality education and character building.
The award was presented during the Ohio Partners in Character Education annual Ohio Schools of Character summit in Columbus, which brought together more than 200 educators from across the state to learn more about what other schools are doing to promote character development in their students.
The daylong event focused on the theme Becoming a School of Character: Taking it to the Classroom and included a series of presentations on promising practices that schools can implement, including Edgewood’s Empowerment Day.
Nye and technology instructor Cindy Beeman traveled to Columbus to accept the award and to present a breakout session for their fellow educators to discuss how Empowerment Day was built into character education at Edgewood.
Empowerment Day is an annual all-day event where students engage in team building initiatives designed to reach specific target areas of communication, listening, collaboration, and other skills important inside the classroom and in life.
Empowerment Day was started in 2006 as a result of Nye’s student leadership group and yearly collaboration with Camp NuHop which developed activities to foster leadership and communication. The experience was eventually expanded to include all Edgewood students.
“Overall, Empowerment Day is a collaborative learning experience fostering student character development,” said Beeman, who described the event as a “school-wide team building activity day, where trained high school students lead middle school students through outdoor stations encouraging students to become a leader.”
According to Beeman, Empowerment Day is just a part of what the Edgewood staff does every day for their students.
“The entire staff puts forth great effort each day carrying out the Character Education program. We focus on positive ways to promote students making right choices. Praising and encouraging students resulted in higher character morale and academics,” said Beeman.
“Empowerment Day is a reflection of Edgewood’s caring parents, dedicated staff, alumni and community members that work collaboratively to foster student leaders and develop the unique personalities of our student body,” said Nye.
Rich Leone, Edgewood principal, reflected on the opportunity to be a part of the summit and to share Edgewood’s success with other members of the educational community. “We are very excited about this award and the opportunity to present Empowerment Day at the conference,” said Leone. “We also had the chance to hear what other schools were doing and implement those ideas in our classrooms.”
Ohio Partners in Character Education is a nonprofit organization focused on promoting and facilitating the development and implementation of character education programs in Ohio schools and communities.
The organization, which was originally formed as the result of a U.S. Department of Education Character Education Pilot Projects grant to the Ohio Department of Education in 1998, works in partnership with the Ohio Department of Education to provide character education resources and technical assistance to Ohio schools and communities.
For more information on Ohio Partners in Character Education, visit their Web site at www.charac tereducationohio.org.