Tracey named state’s only National School of Character
NORWALK — After earning statewide honors as a School of Character from the nonprofit Character.org, in February, Tracey Elementary School received national honors last week. They are the only school in the state to receive the honor, and one of less than a hundred schools nationwide to be given the honor, based on a set of 11 principles of social-emotional learning.
“We’re overjoyed,” Principal Theresa Rangel said. “We know that we’ve been putting in the work for years. This isn’t something that happens over night, but it’s nice to see all the pieces aligning and the evidence surfacing that our focus on social emotional learning is absolutely having an impact on students achievement and the culture and climate in the building.”
Character.org assesses schools based on a set of 11 Principles, which include creating a caring community, providing students opportunities for moral action and fostering student selfmotivation, among others.
Rangel and her staff competed a rigorous application in the late fall and early winter explaining the school’s commitment to each of the principles.
Schools of Character have been named for more than 20 years by Character.org, a Washington, D.C.based nonprofit that recognizes schools who commit to a social-emotional educational model. At Tracey, the distinction is the result of roughly three years of work by Rangel, who became aware of Character.org in her second year at Tracey. In the years leading up to being named a school of Character, Rangel worked to implement a curriculum that focused on educating the “whole child.” The school’s pledge, “PRINT,” includes problem solving, respect, integrity, being neighborly and taking responsibility, and is incorporated into each day’s lessons.
“Tracey is one of the highest performing schools in the district, having achieved a top distinction of Category 1 status by the state,” said Superintendent
of SchoolsDr. Steven J. Adamowski. “Being named a National School of Character connects the academic and social emotional learning success accomplished by Tracey students.”
To Rangel, the curriculum is, in a way, harkens back to older school models, in which teaching students morality took precedent.
“We kind of gave up this idea about how to be a good person, how to be a good friend, how to compromise and how to work through a conflict. I feel like we gave up on that when we moved away from teaching morals in school,” Rangel said. “I think we moved a little too far and we forgot to explicitly teach these things to our kids.”
In addition to created a more nurturing culture for students, the curriculum has helped to improve student achievement. The improvements at Tracey have been noted recently both by the Board of Education, whose Chairman Mike Barbis commended Tracey for its developments in February, and by Gov. Ned Lamont, who visited the school in January with Barbara Dalio, co-founder and director
of the Dalio Foundation, and James Comer, the founder of Yale’s Child Study Center and considered by many to be the father of social/emotional learning. The group visited the school after it was named an example of rising academic achievement in a new report, “From a Nation at Risk to a Nation at Hope,” commissioned by the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development.
Rangel and other Tracey staff members will attend a School of Character Ceremony in Washington, D.C., this fall.
“Realistically speaking, it really doesn’t matter how good your numbers are if you aren’t helping to raise human beings who are going to go out in the world and make a positive change. Just having kids who are performing isn’t our goal, it’s a side effect,” Rangel said. “It always comes back to the kids. We do the work we do to help students, to give them options and give them a school they can be proud of going to.”