/* Round images */ .circular img { border-radius: 50%; }

Promising Practices

A Message from our Promising Practices Coordinator  

Diana Dodson

Diana Dodson

Coordinator of Promising Practices

Character.org is proud to recognize and celebrate 230 Promising Practices that have helped catalyze a school or organization’s commitment to building an intentional culture of character.

Promising Practices generally include innovative approaches that promote
a particular character strength (or several), engage multiple stakeholders (such as students, staff, caregivers, and community members), and align with the core values of a school or organization. Each Promising Practice must also align with at least one of our 11 Principles.

It was an honor for me to read about each practice. Many of these practices highlight the importance of relationship building, fostering a sense of belonging, promoting service learning, improving behavior, amplifying student voice and leadership, and engaging parents and the community.

2025 Promising Practices Press Release

A Sampling of Our 2025 Promising Practices

Integrating Core Values into School Culture

Kenai Character Crew

Carman Trails Elementary School, Missouri
Throughout the school year students are encouraged to recognize a peer who has demonstrated one of the school’s core values (respect, responsibility, kindness, integrity, and perseverance). Once a week, during the morning announcements, one name is drawn at random from each grade level and these students are invited to the office to take their picture with Kenai, the school’s support dog.  

Stories with Character 

Dr. William H. Horton, New Jersey
This Promising Practice engages families and the community while using the power of storytelling to encourage students to practice the school’s core values. Community members are invited to read culturally relevant books that highlight both Hispanic heritage and a wide range of character values. Older students also take the lead by writing, illustrating, and performing original stories that demonstrate a particular core value. Family Story Night is a bilingual literacy event that invites parents and caregivers to participate in read-aloud stations, storytelling performances, and book giveaways.

Positive Behavior Academies

Harmony School of Innovation-Laredo, Texas
Determined to embed their core values into the school culture, several years ago the staff created an “academy” for each grade level that would represent a different core value. Each academy has its own visual cues, including color-coded materials and celebrations. Kindergarten and first graders embrace Perseverance, second graders focus on Respect, third graders embody Integrity, fourth graders represent Self-Discipline, and fifth graders focus on Empathy. Today, the Positive Behavior Academies have become a key part of the school’s character journey.

Hall-Kent House System: Building a Sense of Belonging

Hall-Kent Elementary, Alabama
Everyone at Hall-Kent, from students to faculty and staff, are members of a “House Family” to ensure each student has a trusted adult relationship. Recently, each house has been renamed to reflect one of the school’s core values: Perseverance, Respect, Integrity, Dependability, and Empathy. This change has helped students and staff deepen their understanding of the school’s beliefs, values, and purpose.

Fostering Belonging & Caring and Relationships

First Friday

Alamo Heights High School, Texas
First Friday is a Student Council event that once a month transforms school lunch into a celebration of school spirit. Games. Music. Delicious treats. And more. At the heart of First Friday is the school’s dedication to fostering connections among students across various grade levels and social groups, in hopes of encouraging friendships and meaningful interactions that may not typically occur during a regular school day.

Greenwood Is Love: Restoring Our School Community

Greenwood Elementary School, New Jersey
The staff’s commitment to restorative practices is at the heart of this Promising Practice. The school’s part-time guidance counselor has formed restorative circles that meet twice a week in the library and each session focuses on a core value or one of the five SEL competencies. Through role play, visualization prompts, and team-building activities, the restorative groups offer students a safe space to express their feelings and practice responsible decision-making.

Ambitious Girl Academy

Ambitious Girls, Inc, Arkansas
Project-based learning is at the heart of this Promising Practice. The Ambitious Girl Academy, created by the nonprofit organization Ambitious Girls, includes a capstone project where participants engage in international learning through travel and classroom exchange. The program offers monthly workshops, forums, and opportunities to build self-esteem, community service, and opportunities to tour a local college. Students are also invited to travel abroad to Ghana, West Africa.

Douglas High School Eagle Pals

Douglas High School, Alabama
Blurb: Eagle Pals is a club dedicated to ensuring that students with special needs feel involved and accepted. The high school students involved in the club build connections with students from the Douglas Learning Center through shared experiences, including Night to Shine prom, cheering each other on at the Special Olympics, and celebrating holidays and school events together. This Promising Practice has made Douglas High School a more caring community for all students.

Empowering Student Voice and Leadership

Girl Empowerment/Man Club

Imagine North Lauderdale Elementary School, Florida
This after-school club was created to provide students with opportunities to develop leadership skills through learning about respect, practicing good manners, supporting and encouraging peers, and demonstrating accountability. Every Wednesday, students in the club come together under the guidance of caring adults who model and reinforce the power of positivity.  As the photo shows, both programs participate in “Dress for Success” every Wednesday to boost self-esteem, look distinguished, and always present the best version of themselves.

We Starts with Me!

Smallwood Drive Elementary, New York
The theme for the entire school this past year was “We Starts with Me!” Throughout the year, students were empowered to recognize their unique strengths and how they could find creative ways to contribute to the school community. Every classroom teacher read to their students’ The Best Part of Me by Wendy Ewald, a book that celebrates how children should celebrate their “favorite thing” about themselves. Students also identified the “best part” of themselves on a brick, which also symbolizes that each student is part of the foundation of Smallwood Drive Elementary.

Rooted in Collaboration, Rising in Creativity

Zitzman Elementary, Missouri
This Promising Practice is a year-long, school-wide mural project that starts with the theme of “personal growth.” In the first trimester, students created string-based crafts that symbolized roots (such as their dependable skills and current friendships). During the second trimester, each student contributed a flower or bloom craft that represented how their confidence was growing and getting stronger. As the third trimester got underway, students created flying insects or birds to symbolize each student’s achievements over the past year as well as their readiness to transition to the next grade.

Rise and ROAR: Uniting Our School Through Community Meetings

Kenilworth Science and Technology Academy, Louisiana
The ROAR Community Meeting is a high-energy monthly gathering where the entire school community comes together to ROAR with pride – reciting the school creed, performing chants, passing the Spirit Stick, celebrating birthdays, and honoring students who exemplify the core value of the month. Students take the lead throughout the meeting, including the “Who’s in the House” roll call and the closing affirmation (“I Know I Can”).

Inspiring Acts of Service

Books for Brighter Days

Imagine Andrews Public Charter School, Maryland
Anchor4Life (A4L) is a peer-to-peer club that each year organizes an activity to benefit the children’s division of Holy Cross Hospital. This past year the students decided to organize a book drive, and they collected over 100 books to provide emotional support to kids in the hospital. The students took the lead to research, plan, and carry out the book drive, always mindful that their service was also strengthening their EMPATHY muscles.

Peacebuilders in Action

Community of Peace Academy, Minnesota
Second graders at this school are encouraged to think about how they can make a positive difference at their school. Here are just some of the ideas they came up with: each Friday they would help preschool students, deliver staff mail, and clean up class materials. This Promising Practice is a point of pride for the school, especially for the second-grade students who look forward to each Friday when they can be a “peacemaker in action.”

The Giving Tree: Growing Strong with Character

Village School, New Jersey
This Promising Practice is a cherished tradition at the school. Each year the school community comes together to provide gifts for students in nearby areas whose families are unable to afford them. This past year the school collected over 2,000 gifts! The goal of the project is for all students at the school to practice the core values of kindness, empathy, and generosity. The initiative started in 2003 when a teacher at the school began working with her first-grade class, and soon the project expanded to the entire school. And the rest, as they say, is history.

PAL Program

Pinnacle Academy, Virginia
At the heart of the PAL Program (Pinnacle Academy Leadership) is an opportunity for students to be paired with a staff mentor who encourages each student to establish and track a range of personal goals, including taking on a leadership role for a community service project. PAL students have organized a school-wide movie night to raise funds for wildfire victims as well as raising funds to help build water wells and a school in Kenya. This Promising Practice empowers students to conceive and implement a service initiative that strengthens their leadership muscles while simultaneously deepening their sense of purpose and meaning.

Family/Community Involvement

Unity Day at the Kindergarten Success Academy

Kindergarten Success Academy, New Jersey
A treasured annual tradition, Unity Day is designed to foster kindness, acceptance, and inclusion by bringing together students, staff, families, and the community (including the police). The students participate in an orange-themed march through the community to promote a bully-free environment.  Students prepare for the event by creating posters and messages of positivity, and while walking they chant “Bully Free Starts with Me.” Unity Day has become a powerful approach to foster a culture of respect and empower students to be upstanders.

Book Appreciation Day: Celebrating Literacy, Character, and Community Engagement

School of Science and Technology-The Woodlands, Texas
Central to this Promising Practice is the opportunity for students to select a book and dress as a character that embodies the school’s H.E.A.R.T. touchstone (Humility, Empathy, Accountability, Respect, Trustworthiness, and Self-Control). Parents, caregivers, and community members are invited to celebrate how students engage with literature and the different core values that form the heartbeat of the school culture.

PAWS (Pets and Wildlife Support) Club

Queensbury Middle School, New York
The PAWS Club empowers students to be advocates for animals and local shelters through service. Each year students participating in the club determine which non-profit and local animal shelters they would like to support. The students come together to make dog toys, homemade dog biscuits, and other items that they sell to raise money for a local shelter. Staff members appreciate hearing from former students who report that they are still actively involved with an animal shelter they first learned about when they were in PAWS Club.

Monthly Parent Partnership Meetings

Ad Prima Charter, Pennsylvania
Each month the school holds an evening meeting with parents, with some meetings held at the school while the others are held virtually. In addition to school news and announcements, each meeting addresses a particular topic or theme related to the school’s I-PART core values (Integrity, Perseverance, Accountability, Respect, and Trustworthiness). After each presentation, parents and caregivers are encouraged to ask questions and provide suggestions. Next, parents and caregivers meet with their child’s teacher to discuss how the topic is being addressed in the classroom and how they can model and reinforce the core values at home.

Testimonials

“Our ‘Character Education Progress Reports,’ a 2023 Recognized Promising Practice at Tracey Magnet School, have allowed us to monitor our students character journey in the same we monitor academic growth.  It has helped our school community to celebrate areas of success and areas in which we, as Character Educators need to increase support, SEL instruction and/or adjust our school-wide expectations.  The report is a tool that students reflect upon to monitor their own Character journey as well.  Families are also a part of the conversation, as our reports go home at report card conferences.  Our Character Education reports also support us in planning PD as a staff to provide our students with the best Character Education experience.”

Kristen Penta

Character Education Coach, Tracy Magnet School, Connecticut

“Receiving a Promising Practice was an incredible honor and it helped to open opportunities to us as we reflected on our multiple character education initiatives. Our Promising Practice, “Putting The I in Teaming With a Different Meaning,” was a validation of how teachers, students, and administrators have worked together to enhance every day teaming in Plainedge Middle School.  In addition, we took advantage of multiple invitations to present our Promising Practice at the National Forum Middle Schools Conference in Washington DC last June, and then again at the New York State Middle Schools Association Conference in Verona, New York.  As a result, it gave us the confidence to apply to become a New York State School of Character – which we were designated in January 2024.”

Jen Puleo

Assistant Principal, Plainedge Middle School, New York

“When we began our character journey, we knew we had many great initiatives happening on our campus, even if we weren’t yet at the School of Character level. Our first step was applying for a Promising Practice, which got our campus more excited and invested in the process of building a culture of character. Even after achieving NSOC, we continue to apply for a Promising Practice each year to spotlight different teachers, groups, and practices showcasing the depth of our character efforts across our campus and keeping our community invested in this important work.”

Lauren Boyher

School Counselor, Cambridge Elementary, Texas

“Receiving promising practices from Character.org has profoundly impacted Imagine South Vero. These initiatives shaped our character development approach, fostering a sense of purpose and unity. Implementation resulted in a positive impact on student behavior, engagement, and well-being. We’re immensely grateful for Character.org’s support, driving transformative change at Imagine South Vero through the 11 principles.”

Lauren Poirier

Principal, Imagine Schools at South Vero, Florida

“Being part of the 30th anniversary Character.org forum to receive our Promising Practice award was such a wonderful experience. Not only was it so rewarding to be recognized for our Ivanhoe Cadet Program, but it was also an opportunity to be part of a much larger display of so many other schools around the world doing amazing work in character development. Promising Practices is a wonderful initiative to have us all look deeply into our programming in our schools to find the best practices that bring out the best in our young people.”

Fiona Devlin

Deputy Principal/Head of Plenty Campus, Ivanhoe Grammar School, Australia