Junior High Students Create a Community Agreement

As a school that prioritizes relationships, our Jr. High students were recently tasked with creating a Community Agreement. This short, but powerful statement will guide their behavior and serve as a reminder that they each have responsibilities to each other and play an important role in building our school culture. 

During a recent Flex block, Lower School counselors Talia Riem and Britney Dedmon led a discussion on Community Values with the 7th and 8th graders. Topics included how to define bullying and the importance of advocating for themselves and others when they hear or see something. They talked about kindness and the value of maintaining personal integrity in all spaces-at school, outside of school, with friends and in the digital realm of social media.

Students then went to work in small groups.They were given a bag containing 34 words and challenged to craft their statement using only 15 of the words. The students selected words they find value in—words that describe the behavior they expect from themselves and each other. 

After each group shared their sentence, the entire Junior High voted to select their favorite:

 “Together we will create mindsets to respect and appreciate perspectives to welcome solutions to challenges.” 

“More than a set of rules, this agreement sets expectations and responsibilities for students as members of their Junior High community,” explained  Casey Goff, Jr. High Assistant Dean. “When the students commit to treat one another with kindness and respect and to act with integrity, they find a great deal of freedom and safety to be individuals within their larger body of classmates.”

This agreement speaks to how we all should engage others: with kindness, courage, mindfulness and patience. The collaborative development process gave the students ownership and afforded them a shared language/vocabulary to discuss their expectations.

The Community Agreement is now proudly displayed in the Junior High hallway as a constant reminder of their commitment to fostering a kind and inclusive environment. Educating our students on this type of social responsibility is the first step in ensuring they will make the world a better place.