Hillside earns 'Caring' award

Hillside Middle School in Salt Lake City has earned a national award from Community of Caring founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

Community of Caring is a schoolwide, comprehensive research-based program involving students, teachers, bus drivers, custodians and administration. Its philosophy aims to enhance a school's culture and weave its five values — caring, respect, responsibility, trust and family — into every aspect of school life.

Hillside has been named an Outstanding Community of Caring School.

Kristy Fink, executive director for Community of Caring, said essentially the program is a character-education initiative that if implemented correctly can act as the first line of defense for almost any problems that may arise.

Hillside's success comes from its systematic, whole-school approach. The values are found and talked about in the classroom, in discipline, in the halls and even outside the school, principal Jane Larson said.

The approach is ingraining the values into the students through listening and getting kids to think about how they themselves want to be treated.

As a school it narrows down the things that collectively make students feel happy and safe and then work on those items as a school. Teachers and administrators talk about limiting gossiping, including others and respecting differences.

Larson said the goal is to make teachers aware of how they react to students, make students aware of how the react to teachers and make students aware of how they react with students.

According to Larson, the effects are easily visible. There are significantly less discipline problems, attendance is high and the students are nicer to each other.

"They feel emotionally comfortable here . . . ; if kids feel good at school they come," Larson said.

Fink said schools like Hillside who work with Community of Caring at such high levels have powerful student outcomes. Over the years data have shown that students in Community of Caring schools are not only kinder to each other but they have higher academic achievement and stronger norms of respect.

"Of any award we could get I am the most proud that I can say these kids go to a school where you care," Larson said. "One school in the nation is chosen as a school that cares about their kids — I think that's huge."

Community of Caring was established 22 years ago by Shriver and has now spread into more than 1,000 schools in the United States and Canada. In Utah the program has found a home in Salt Lake City, Park City, Granite, Nebo, Duchesne and Washington school districts.

"This award is absolute proof that we work together as a school community to take care of kids," Larson said. "That village concept — we actually take it seriously."

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