The Peck School, a K - 8 school of some 340 students in Morristown, NJ, joins CSEE's growing list of schools recognized for excellent practices for ethical education. The Peck School affirms its commitment to ethical excellence from the outset. In the first two lines of the school's mission statement prospective students learn, and the Peck community is reminded, that "We believe that knowledge must be guided by values. Through a commitment to character formation and a rigorous and inspirational academic program, The Peck School strives to build in each student a capacity for disciplined learning and consideration of others." The school has a strongly conceived and well integrated (both curriculum and extracurriculars) character program titled "Individual Development and Community Responsibility" (InDeCoRe). Peck has six core values identified—respect, responsibility, empathy, honesty, perseverance, and loyalty—each of which is addressed consciously in the classroom: in the context of "self" in grades 1 and 2, of "family" in grades 3 and 4, of the "school" in grades 5 and 6, and of the local "community" in grades 7 and 8. Especially impressive at The Peck School is the fact that the school's mission is recognized by students. Not only do students know Peck's core values, they are able to discuss them and to recognize them in action, including in their own behavior. This is, of course, where all good schools want to be! Peck joins Pine Point School (CT), Kent Denver School (CO), and The Walker School (GA) in demonstrating implementation of established best practices for ethical education. See more about Peck School. CSEE's Schools Officially Recognized for "Excellence in Ethical Education"
The Peck School
Morristown, NJ
John Kowalik, Head of School The Walker School
Marietta, GA
Don Robertson, Head of School
The Walker School is a Pre-K through Grade 12 school with over a thousand students, and proof that big schools can do exemplary work for ethical education as well as small schools. Two basics lie behind Walker's accomplishments. The first is that the core moral value of integrity is central to Walker's mission; the mission is prominently visible throughout the school, and the Walker faculty is aware that—along with creativity, a lifelong love of learning, and the creation of a nurturing environment—integrity is the goal. The second basic—and key to Walker's success—is that Walker educators see themselves as both academic mentors and character trainers: ethical education is a shared responsibility, and is thus integrated into the curriculum and extracurriculars at all levels. Walker students further know that their teachers and their school have character goals for them, and are quick to mention integrity and trusting relationships as central to these goals.
The Walker character program varies from level to level, as it should, with innovative, solid practices tying each division together—but always with the focus of high quality, relationships of trust and integrity. See more about Walker here.
Kent Denver School
Denver, Colorado
Todd Horn, Head of School
Kent Denver School is a community of some 750 adults and students working together for excellence in both scholarship and character.
Community life at Kent Denver is imbued with five core values that run in filigree through academics, athletics, and other activities. Students are empowered to play meaningful roles in a variety of ways, the school works to build relationships of trust and support both within its own walls and in the larger Denver community.
Kent Denver’s core values— integrity, respect, personal growth, community, and wisdom —were determined through a broad-based community consensus process that synthesized the thoughts and opinions of teachers, students, trustees and parents. The school’s trustees regularly affirm, and in a variety of ways, their support for Kent Denver’s character work and values. Students likewise keep in mind the character traits selected to be defining characteristics of the community. The fact that 80% or more of juniors and seniors could name all five values—an estimate offered by students and faculty and confirmed during a campus visit—attests both to Kent Denver’s determination to live out its mission for character, and to integration of the values throughout the life of the school. As one senior explained, even “the coaches are always talking about our values.”
Worth special mention are at least three specific aspects of Kent Denver’s commitment character. One of these is an extensive service “program” that sees the school (at its own expense) making a noticeable impact in a dozen of the lowest-funded schools in the Denver public school system. Students from these schools come to Kent Denver for six weeks of work and play during summers, in a program that has increased the rate of college admissions in these schools and shown students to make a year’s progress in academic areas during a six-week program. Kent Denver also has an impressive student mentoring program, in which seniors and eighth graders work as mentors to freshmen and sixth grade students, smoothing transitions into their respective divisions and passing the torch of the community’s values to a new class. In a third initiative, all Kent Denver students write a “this I believe” essay each year: an initiative that both focuses students on key values in their lives and triggers deep ethical reflections, apologies, and acts of kindness and compassion. See more about Kent Denver School