Character Education

Goals
1. Provide, through appropriate district personnel, basic framework information regarding Character Education that can be used in communication to families.
2. Use or create a school newsletter to discuss Character Education Touchstone and suggestions for how to reinforce it at home.
3. Put campus-specific Character Education information on individual campus websites.
4. Publicize opportunities for Service Learning so that families can participate in those projects.
5. Offer seminars during the fall and spring (at minimum) to families to assist them in extending and reinforcing the Touchstone at home and in their children’s interactions in the community.
6. Provide English classes to non-English-speaking families on individual campuses at different times of the day.
7. Engage local adolescent specialists (i.e.: doctors, psychologists, nutritionists) to inform the larger community about adolescent cognitive and social development issues and questions, and provide tools for addressing them using various communication venues (i.e. AISD cable, AISD Character Education website, family newsletters, family seminars, etc.).


The character education curriculum that the students and teachers at Webb Middle School are using is Life Skills Training: Promoting Health and Personal Development. This curriculum was written by Gilbert J. Botvin, Ph.D., a professor of public health and psychiatry at Cornell University. The curriculum aims to use research tested materials for helping middle school students make good decisions for themselves in the world. There are three levels to the curriculum, one for each middle school grade. As the students progress, the materials advance in sophistication and complexity.

The modules include:
· Self-Image and Self-Improvement
· Making Decisions
· Drug and Alcohol Myths and Realities
· Analyzing Advertising
· Influence of the Media
· Coping with Anxiety
· Coping with Anger
· Communication Skills
· Social Skills
· Resisting Peer Pressure
· Assertiveness
· Resolving Conflicts