Local Schools Receive Portion of $1.3 Million Character 
Education Grant

March 7, 2007 - Gahanna- Jefferson Public Schools and West Muskingum Local Schools are two of the five Ohio school districts to receive a four-year $270,000 competitive grant from the Ohio Department of Education (ODE), part of the $1.3 million awarded today for new character education programs. 

Ohio Partners in Character Education, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Better Business Bureau Foundation and ODE, directs the project. Funding for the program comes from a U.S. Department of Education “Partnerships in Character Education” grant that ODE received in August.

Other districts receiving the four-year grants include Northwestern Local Schools in Wayne County, Winton Woods City Schools in Hamilton County, and Canton Local Schools in Stark County. Each district will receive $45,000 this academic year, then $75,000 each remaining year.

The goals of the project are to help students make successful transitions from middle to high school; improve student character and school climate; increase parent and community involvement; and improve student’s academic achievement. 

In each participating Ohio district, a middle and a high school will work together to integrate character education into secondary reading skill development in all subject areas. In each school, a trained teacher will serve as a character coach and work with school staff, parents, students and community members to build a unified school culture centered on excellence and ethics.

“Success in life depends on getting along with others, and being respectful, fair, honest and responsible,” explained Lucy Frontera, executive director of Ohio Partners in Character Education. “A school culture stressing these values and high performance expectations improves morale and scholastic achievement.”

The character-building project uses a research-based model developed by Thomas Lickona and Matthew Davidson of the State University of New York-Cortland, authors of Report to the Nation: Smart and Good High Schools. Rather than being an “add-on” taught in a classroom, the Lickona-Davidson model emphasizes infusing excellence and ethics into every school function.

Data from the five Ohio grant programs will be compared to five other districts to determine what difference the program can make in academic achievement, school discipline and other factors. Results of the data analysis will be available in 2010.

Contact: Lucy Frontera, Ohio Partners in Character Education (614) 893-9971