ARLINGTON, VA (June 6, 2011) – The Character Education Partnership (CEP), the leading national advocate for character education, notified Imagine Schools leaders recently that they had won fourteen Promising Practices awards, recognizing two national initiatives and twelve campus-based initiatives. CEP reviewed nearly 500 applications and honored 260 initiatives. Imagine Schools garnered more honors than any other educational organization.
Promising Practices awards highlight the unique, effective, and specific strategies used on campuses and across organizations to help students become better citizens, friends, and leaders. The Imagine Schools National Office received recognition for the Imagine Schools National Character Essay Contest, in its fifth year, which awarded national honors to student essays from among over 700 character essays that were selected from 61 Imagine Schools’ campus competitions. Another Promising Practice award was given to the national office to recognize the Year-End Character Self-Evaluation, a comprehensive report of character goals, initiatives, and results compiled annually by the character task force on each of Imagine’s 73 campuses. They use qualitative and quantitative data analysis and complete a narrative summary reviewing their progress toward meeting their goals at the end of the year.
Promising Practices awards also were given to the following Imagine campuses:
Imagine Academy of Environmental Science and Math (Building Rocket Pride); Imagine Bella Academy (Bella Ball); Imagine Charter School at Weston (Character Development Progress Report); Imagine Kissimmee Charter Academy (School-Wide Character Assemblies and “We Are Imagine” school song); Imagine Klepinger Road Community School (We are Bucket Fillers!); Imagine MASTer Academy (Communication Card); Imagine Prep at Surprise (Moral Foundations: A Class United); Imagine School East Mesa (Staff Development); Imagine Schools at Desert West (Junior Police Program); Imagine South Lake (Character Caroling); and Imagine Town Center (Learning with a Purpose).
Eileen Bakke, VP of Education for Imagine Schools, said, “We are so pleased that CEP recognized Imagine Schools for helping students to become responsible, capable, caring citizens and tomorrow’s leaders. These Promising Practices demonstrate only a few of the recognized ways that Imagine Schools integrates character development into every aspect of the school day. We partner with parents and guardians in the education of their children. They recognize the value of character formation, leadership and service as important components of a quality education.”
Positive character development is one of Imagine Schools’ Six Measures of Excellence, criteria by which we measure our performance and hold ourselves accountable to high standards. Every Imagine Schools campus places a strong emphasis on character development and evaluates its effectiveness in this area annually.
All winning schools and practices are listed on the CEP website (www.character.org), and promising practices will be printed and published in the Character Education Partnership’s annual publication, National Schools of Character: Award-Winning Practices. Award recipients will be honored at the annual Promising Practice ceremony at the CEP National Forum on Character Education on October 19-22, 2011 in San Francisco, CA. At that event, CEP also will recognize Imagine South Lake as a 2011 National School of Character, which is CEP’s highest award that recognizes schools for their outstanding character development of students and building school cultures that allow students to thrive socially and academically.
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Imagine Schools is a national family of public charter schools that empowers educators in partnership with parents to prepare students for lives of leadership, accomplishment, and character. A full-service charter school operator, Imagine Schools educates nearly 40,000 students on 73 campuses in 12 states and the District of Columbia. For more information, visit www.imagineschools.org.
Contact: Krystal Sherrill
616-340-0365