The Caring School Community™ program actually creates more time for teaching and learning. Because CSC gives students a choice about how the classroom is run and a voice in monitoring it, the overall climate improves. Problems arise less frequently, and those that do arise can be resolved more quickly. When the time spent on interruptions and discipline decreases, the time for learning increases.

Not only is the program’s holistic approach to teaching and practicing values less time-consuming than an approach of teaching character traits in isolation, using values in daily practice is also more powerful than simply learning about them.

Here’s what teachers are saying:

Class meetings help with management.

“Having class meetings helps with management. Whenever we have incidents in the classroom, I can refer to that touchstone meeting where we talked about how we want to work together. By saying, ‘Remember when we decided what we wanted?’ I don’t have to go through the whole process with the child. That means I’m not problem solving all the time. Also, since we have class meetings every day, my kids know they have a place to bring their issues. So they don’t bombard me after recess with problems that happened on the playground.”

—Nina Morita, grade 1 teacher

Behavior isn’t the focus of the classroom.

“In the first two weeks of school, we talk about ways we want the classroom to be. We listen and talk to each other until everybody agrees on what’s acceptable. Then, when someone does something disruptive, the kids can talk to each other instead of bringing the problem to me. So problems get resolved much faster—and behavior isn’t the focus of the classroom.”

—Gail Fay, grade 6 teacher

Spend time on community up front.

“Everything you do every day is about building community and building relationships. So the time that you spend up front, because it impacts the discipline and culture, gives you more time in the long run to have an academic environment. If you have a strong sense of community where the children buy into the norms of the classroom—because they’ve had a voice in them—it’s their classroom. Then they have a vested interest in the life of the classroom. They’ve bought into the academics, and they are much more willing to learn.”

—Glenna Hess, staff developer and former elementary teacher