How does a school become a School of Respect?
Ten suggested steps for becoming a School of Respect™:
1. The principal(s) along with the faculty/staff leadership team reviews the information on our website schoolsofrespect.org.
2. If a decision is made to keep exploring the possibility of becoming a School of Respect after this review, develop questions that your school has about becoming a School of Respect. Contact us by sending an email to support@schoolsofrespect.org. Let us know a few days and times in the next few weeks that would be good for a free no-pressure no-obligation one-hour virtual meeting or phone call with your principal and possibly with your faculty/staff leadership team in order to have your questions answered about becoming a School of Respect. (If your school is located within 50 miles of Lancaster, PA, we are available to meet in-person.)
3. If your principal along with your faculty/staff leadership team decides to move forward with considering becoming a School of Respect, ask all of your faculty/staff to review the information on schoolsofrespect.org and to give special attention to the written presentation on the faculty/staff page of the website.
4. Hold a meeting with your entire faculty/staff in order to answer any questions that they may have about becoming a School of Respect and to have a discussion about it. (Having their "buy in" is absolutely essential to a School of Respect being able to help students reach their full potential.) `After this question-and-answer time and discussion, we respectfully request that you conduct an anonymous survey of the faculty/staff in order to find out if they are overwhelmingly interested in becoming a School of Respect. (We ask that at least 90% of faculty/staff members be "all in", so that being a School of Respect can significantly impact student behavior and achievement.)
5. Please submit the application form to become a School of Respect which is located on the last page of this website. After approval of the application, please submit payment for the annual national dues which are currently $3 per student per school year (unless your school has been awarded a first-year grant).
6. Schedule a virtual meeting with your Schools of Respect professional consultant to train the Respect Leadership Team (the makeup of this team is described on the "What is a School of Respect?" page of this website). This team creates an annual Respect Plan and also monitors the implementation of the plan throughout the school year. The plan,
which is part of the School Improvement Plan, specifically outlines how the
school will model, teach, encourage, and positively reinforce respect in all
three areas (job, others, yourself). We provide suggestions for all aspects of
the Respect Plan.
7. Schedule an informative and entertaining virtual, or possibly in-person, training for your faculty/staff with the consultant. This training will help to make sure that everyone understands their role in a School of Respect and why it is essential for each faculty/staff person to play their role every day. This training will also explain why it is necessary for respect to permeate everything in the school in order for the School of Respect to successfully help students reach their full potential - and it will include suggested strategies for doing just that. By everything, we mean things like the consistent language of respect that the faculty/staff uses, regular integration of the three areas of respect into existing lesson plans, respectful classroom management including consistent routines and expectations, student made banners/posters with positive sayings from Respect Club videos (such as "You're a miracle!"™, "I will not launch imaginary arrows at others!™, "Who's sitting on your shoulder?™, "Please Just Don't Do It!"™, "You can achieve THE BIG GOAL!"™*, "How's your respect for your job today?"™, "Bee Positive!"™, "Respect is a beeutiful thing!"™), the parent engagement plan, the School Improvement Plan, the respectful school discipline system, how students will be positively reinforced for having strong respect, enthusiasm (even if we have to fake it to begin with), modeling what respect for others looks like through our daily interactions with everyone, etc. We believe that respect has to be baked into the DNA of the school in order for a School of Respect to have the greatest positive impact. All of this may seem like a lot - but the good news is that after a while all of it becomes second nature - and dare we say, even "fun." *"THE BIG GOAL" for everyone - administrators, faculty, staff, and students is: "To live a good life by having strong respect for my job, others, and myself every day" A common goal can be very powerful if everyone embraces it.
8. Create four faculty/staff Respect Improvement Teams that meet at least monthly to fulfill duties assigned by the Respect Club Leadership Team and to give input to the Respect Club Leadership Team: Team #1 - faculty/staff/parent engagement (including communication and appreciation), Team #2 - Respect your job, Team #3 - Respect others, Team #4 - Respect yourself. The purpose of these teams is to continuously seek ways to help students develop stronger respect for their job, others, and themselves.
9. Designate the first and/or the third Thursday of each month as "RESPECT!" Thursdays. On these days, we suggest that schools ask the faculty, staff and students to wear their '25-'26 RESPECT definition™ (pictured below), RESPECT ROCKS!™, RESPECT always - NO excuses!™, RESPECT=SUCCESS™, or their Respect is a beeutiful thing!™ T-shirt combined with a dress down day for the faculty, staff and students (wearing these T-shirts once or twice a month encourages respect and it also helps to build school spirit).
10. At some point in the future, the Respect Leadership Team develops and implements a plan to create a collaborative effort between administrators, faculty/staff, students, parents, community leaders, public safety officials, business leaders, and members of the community in order to model, teach, encourage, and positively reinforce respect community-wide. Being a School of Respect can allow a school harness the awesome power of collaboration that is created when everyone is on the same page and speaks the same language in regard to respect. Can you imagine the positive impact on a student who hears about as well as sees evidence of the importance of respect out in the community? For example - a firefighter talking with a student about why respect is so important, posters with the definition of respect made by students displayed by businesses, banners promoting respect designed by students attached to street light poles, bumper stickers promoting respect designed by students on emergency vehicles, patches promoting respect designed by students on first responder uniforms, etc.
Additional information about teaching respect: Schools can decide to start a Respect Club™ of students to create videos that teach respect as part of the school's annual Respect Plan instead of using the Respect Club videos which are located on the Bee Respectful YouTube® channel. In order to do this, the school would have to recruit a Respect Club faculty adviser. We provide the scripts/presentation slides written by a certified school counselor for the videos. Here's a comment from a teacher whose class watched videos created by Respect Club members: "It was a good idea to have our students in the videos - my class really paid attention." Please send an email to support@schoolsofrespect.org to request detailed information about how to start a Respect Club at your school.
"All of a sudden I realized that being in the drama (and being disrespectful to others) wasn't helping me - so I found myself a few strong friends, got out of the drama, and focused on doing my best in school. It was a good choice." - an eighth grader
"When I'm angry, I use "My Shield" (a tool taught in a Respect Club
video) to protect myself and calm down." - a third grader
We have suggestions, if needed, for each of these steps. Please email us at support@schoolsofrespect.org if you have questions or we can be of assistance. We do our best to respond within five business days.
Our '25-'26 T-shirt is now available at https://www.bonfire.com/respect-definition-t-shirt/
Everyone is a miracle!™
Respect is a beeutiful thing!™
"Bee Respectful!"™
"Bee Respectful of your job, others, and yourself!"™
"Bee Respectful, Bee Industrious, Bee Safe!"™
"Bee strong and start a Respect Club at your school!"™
"Beecome a School of Respect!"™
"Bee ALL-IN to achieve THE BIG GOAL!"™
Respect is to a school like a rudder is to a large ship - a small thing that makes a real difference.™