Thanks to a $308,000, three-year grant from the Rose Community Foundation, Denver Public Schools is expanding its character education initiative. The district has established the new Office of Educating for Character under the leadership of Director Charles Elbot. Currently 22 Denver schools are involved in the character education initiative, and more will join this year.

“The goal of the grant is to develop profound and sustainable school-based approaches to educating students in character, K-12,” Elbot said. “It is our hope that schools will learn and borrow from each other, transforming and blending the pieces to create an approach that is deeply rooted in the life of each school community.”

“Educating for character isn’t a program, but a fundamental part of the educational process. It’s about empowering students with goodness as well as knowledge,” Elbot said. He believes character education can and should be embedded throughout the school day and curriculum.

“In addition to being supportive of Denver’s groundbreaking pay-for-performance pilot, we are interested in helping schools become communities of caring, justice and democracy. So we are thrilled to help DPS do some thinking about strong pedagogy in this area,” said Phil Gonring, Senior Program Officer for the Rose Community Foundation.

Elbot will work closely with schools that wish to establish character education. The first step is gathering a core group of constituents to act as a steering committee and to engage the school community in the project. School surveys and interviews may then be conducted to reflect on school culture. The next step is to develop a mission statement. Staff development and parent education are other key components of a successful character education initiative.