Students deserve a place where they can come everyday and feel like appreciated members of their environment. Where their words and actions count and everyone is treated with a mutual understanding and respect. Without this feeling of safety and acceptance, student not only won’t be able to focus on their work or lessons, but why would they want to come to that environment in the first place? Giving students the most conducive environment for learning is just as, if not more, important than the actual academic education they will receive. If students learn in an environment where they feel respected cared for and encouraged, they are more likely . Goodwin and Hubbell list a few ways that this can be accomplished:

1. Establish rules of behavior and consequences for misconduct:

•  Rules and expectations of behavior should be made very clear
• Frame rules in the positive
• Involve students in defining expectations
• Know your consequences
  
  

2. Catch students doing this right

• Accentuate the positive: call out students who are doing appropriate behaviors rather always the ones who are doing bad behaviors
• Dispense commendation cards or notes
•  Provide opportunities for students praise each other
• Offer public praise for exemplary behavior
  
  

3. Be “with it”

• Organized! = tight transitions, have procedures and structure 
• Respond quickly: neglecting problem behavior only send the message that it will be tolerated.
  
  

4. Provide classroom check in time

5. Enlist student support

• Peer recognition
• Adopt different points of view
• Let student recognize each others accomplishments
  
  

6. Encourage positive classroom discourse:

• Encourage risk taking, questions and wrong answers
• Establish rules for group work
• Guidelines for formal cooperative activities
• Establish expectations and time limits
  
  

In my school, we teach our students the importance of the following tenants:
                      Perseverance, Respect, Integrity, Determination, Excellence.
Students are encouraged to show their Hawk P.R.I.D.E both in academic settings as well as within the community. Since it's implementation, we have seen fewer discipline referrals and a stronger sense of community.