Smart & Good High Schools - The Flippen Group

CHAPTER 5: Fostering the 8 Strengths of Character—Outcome 7We visited a small orthodox Jewish school that involved all350 of its students, along with faculty and staff, in its justcommunity. To do this, it has held a weekly Town Hallmeeting since the school’s founding twelve years ago.The preamble of the school’s “Just Community Constitution”sets forth its vision:We the students, faculty, administration, and staff membersof SHS, a school founded on Jewish values, in order to forma more just and caring community; provide for a mutuallyrespectful learning environment; honor each person’s dignityand worth; promote each individual’s moral reasoning andethical development; and secure democratic values of liberty,equality, and justice, do establish this Constitution for ourDemocratic Just Community.The school’s Constitution also spells out the “limits of theDemocratic Just Community.” It may not vote on mattersof (1) curriculum or pedagogy, (2) Jewish law, and (3)state and federal law. The following are the nuts-and-boltsoperating procedures:1. Each adult staff member of the school has 8 advisees.Advisories meet for 40 minutes every Tuesday andidentify issues they want to bring up for whole-schoolcommunity discussion.2. Three advisories then come together as a “communityforum” to further discuss and clarify a particular issueand make recommendations to the Town Hall AgendaCommittee (11 students, 2 faculty, and one administrativeadvisor).3. Town Hall meetings are held every Thursday fromnoon to 1:00 pm and are conducted by student leadersaccording to Robert’s Rules (with occasional interventionsfrom the principal to quiet students kibitzing onthe fringes).4. If the issue under discussion does not fall into any ofthe three areas outside Town Hall’s purview, it eventuallycomes to a vote, with everyone—students, faculty,and staff—having one vote.A recent addition to the Town Hall process is that if itThe school itself must be a morallycoherent community and a microcosmof democracy.—ROSEMARY SALAMWHAT STUDENTS SAY ABOUT THEIRJUST COMMUNITYSTRENGTHS“We have a voice—we can speak our minds, with amike, in front of the whole school.”“Most students participate—about 15 in any givenmeeting and, over the course of the four years, about80%. At any given Town Hall, about 2/3 of the commentsare made by students, 1/3 by teachers.”“We develop the ability to think about all sides of anissue and to speak before a large group.”“We like being part of debates where both students andteachers openly disagree with each other. We’ve becomemore comfortable disagreeing with authority.”“We’ve made school improvements such as passing apolicy that requires teachers to do student evaluations ofall courses. For a while we had some stealing—we thinkit was only 3 or 4 students—and after we discussed thatin Town Hall, it was much less of a problem.”“Everyone—students, faculty, and administration—feelsinterconnected with everyone else. If any act of vandalismor stealing occurs, everyone understands how disrespectfuland immoral it is, and feels responsible. Recently,someone in our school put sugar into the gasoline tankof a respected and respectful teacher. This act of vandalismwas brought to our Town Hall meeting, and ourmoral community came together and contributedenough money to compensate for the damages.”AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT“We don’t get to vote on enough things. They define alot of things as related to curriculum, so we can’t makedecisions about them.”“There are so many things we care about that are outof our control—dress code, the breakfast menu, the sexeducation program. It’s as if they’re saying, ‘You canexpress your opinion,’ but then they stop us when wedo express our opinion. We have a forum for expressingour views but it’s not a true democracy.”“Some students screw around in Town Hall—talk totheir friends, do homework. Only 20 to 40 studentstake an active part on a regular basis.”“Sometimes we talk an issue to death, like the honorcode. The Agenda Committee doesn’t get enough proposals.”187Smart & Good High Schools