Our NNCW last week went really well! My goal was to encourage as many groups of people to be involved in some way. Reasoning behind this was two-fold in that it number one gets everyone involved and number two takes much of the work off of my shoulders!

The foreign language department had their students make posters in Spanish and French that said things like "no bullying" and "respect one another." These are posted throughout our school. Our art teachers asked their students to be creative and draw posters with positive words that describe people, after they had already discussed the negative words they hear in the hallways. These are also posted around the school.

Our librarians displayed books in the library that were related to friendships, respect, tolerance, etc. Our phys. ed. teachers put an extra emphasis on teamwork and getting along during classes all week. Student Council played songs like "Where is the love?" and "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" on the morning announcements, along with words of wisdom for no name-calling.

The biggest thing we did was ask each team of teachers to nominate one or two students they think show positive behavior, no bullying, sticking up for others, respect, etc. We rewarded these students with a pizza party with our principal and vice principal, as well as certificates for the I AM THE CHANGE Award. They were so pleased to receive an award for simply being themselves, considering they didn't know the award existed before being nominated. It was a great success! We hope to continue this piece throughout the year.

It is definitely an easy but important event that I believe all schools should focus on, especially middle level schools where bullying is such a huge issue.