PALM BEACH COUNTY DECLARES
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2011
ETHICS AWARENESS DAY IN PALM BEACH COUNTY
The Board of Palm Beach County Commissioners has declared Friday, November 18, 2011 as Ethics Awareness Day to recognize the efforts of businesses, communities and organizations to demonstrate good ethics and character throughout the county.
The School District collaborated with this initiative to bring additional awareness to the six pillars of character, Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, and Caring, Fairness, and Citizenship and the importance of ethical behavior in our schools.
The district recognizes the efforts of schools to bring about good character and ethics and encourages schools to celebrate, demonstrate and incorporate character and ethics lessons into their daily schedule during the week of November 14-18, 2011. Morning announcements, lesson plan and activity ideas can be found below.
Schools are asked to share how they celebrated, demonstrated and incorporated ethics and character into the daily school life. Information can be sent to Susan Knight, knight@palmbeachschools.org or
Judy Lamb, judy.lamb@palmbeachschools.org.
Contact Susan Knight. PX76945. or Judy Lamb, PX76946, with any questions or to share how your school celebrated Ethics Awareness Day 2011.
MORNING ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Use the following short definitions and information during your morning announcements this week:
Monday: What is Ethics?
As defined by Wikipedia, Ethics, also known as moral philosophy,
is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality — that
is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice
justice and crime, etc.
Tuesday: Ethics - What are yours?
Ethical behavior is when someone is being on their best behavior. All of their actions and words are following good moral principles. People enjoy being around others who have a good ethical behavior.
Wednesday: The Six Pillars of Character
As a district and a school, we recognize and celebrate six pillars of character: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Caring, Fairness and Citizenship - what pillar best describes you?
Thursday: Know the Good and Do the Good
We have given you the meaning of ethics, talked about our pillars of character and asked you to consider which best describes you.
Today, ask yourself what you can do to show your good character in school and after school with family or friends. You know what is right, you know what is wrong - make a good choice today!
Friday: Character Counts! Ethics in Action
What have you done this week to model and promote good character and ethical behavior?
Continue having the courage to do the right thing, being respectful of others, being responsible by using self-discipline, being fair - by not taking advantage of others, showing empathy and kindness to those around you and by doing your share to make your school and community better.
Celebrate good ethical behavior today!
BULLETIN:
Ethics Awareness Day Bulletin# P-14068-SCLF/SIS
CLASSROOM LESSONS:
Ethics and Personal Belongings - Grades K-3
Do the Right Thing- In Person and in Cyberspace - Grades 4-5
What Are Your Ethics - Grades 6-8
Ethics in the Workplace - Grades 09-12
In addition, click on the Classroom Resources tab in the right column to access additional handouts, lessons and activities.
WEBSITES (click on the link to be directed to the site):
www.cerias.purdue.edu/education
Welcome - This website is intended to assist you in your efforts to teach and model good character to students and adults in our schools and the community. We have provided many classroom resources such as newsletters, character lessons, printable materials, character articles for schools and the workplace and a list of approved collaborators to work in the schools. We hope that your access to this information will help to enhance your character initiatives.
Character Education helps students develop socially, ethically, and academically by infusing character development into every aspect of the school culture and curriculum.
The State of Florida mandated that Character Education be taught in every public school in grades K-12 by the start of the 2004-05 school year.
- A positive school climate is sustained by character education efforts.
- Character Education is a part of the School Improvement Plan of many schools and ties directly to the mission of the School District of Palm Beach County.
- The District adopted the Six Pillars of Character from the Josephson Institute of Ethics. These pillars are: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Caring, Fairness and Citizenship.
Click on the links to the right to access Character Education articles, information and materials.
Contact Information:
Susan Knight, Character Education Coordinator
knight@palmbeachschools.org
Telephone #: 366-6945 or PX 76945, Fax #: 366-6961 or PX 76961