Character Education has a long standing history in the School District of Washington. For over 23 years, the SDOW has had a partnership with Character Plus. As a community, we have identified four core values we want to ensure all students graduate with: Respect, Ownership, Commitment and Kindness (ROCK).

ROCK is a partnership with families so that our students not only graduate with the academic skills necessary to succeed with their post secondary goals, but also have the character to succeed in life.

We will utilize the 11 Principles of Character Education as a framework for our work with Character Education. The principles are as follows:

• Core values are defined, implemented, and embedded into school culture.
• The school defines “character” comprehensively to include thinking, feeling, and doing.
• The school uses a comprehensive, intentional, and proactive approach to develop character.
• The school creates a caring community.
• The school provides students with opportunities for moral action.
• The school offers a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all learners, develops their character, and helps them succeed.
• The school fosters students’ self-motivation.
• All staff share the responsibility for developing, implementing, and modeling ethical character.
• The school’s character initiative has shared leadership and long-range support for continuous improvement.
• The school engages families and community as partners in the character initiative.
• The school assesses its implementation of character education, its culture and climate, and the character growth of students on a regular basis.