Katy ISD's Bryant Elementary Creates Kindness Challenges for Students

KATY MAGAZINE NEWS

May 5, 2018

Ashley Lancaster

Third through fifth grade members of the Kindness Crew are on a mission to spread joy and friendship to every student at Bryant Elementary through easy, fun, and uplifting weekly challenges.

Once a month, students from third, fourth, and fifth grade meet with the school counselor at Bryant Elementary to talk about what is happening in the lives of Bengals, including setbacks and successes.

Each member of the Kindness Crew has input in creating weekly challenges. The entire campus competes, and students can nominate each other to be recognized for showing acts of extreme kindness.

Every Monday, the Kindness Crew greets students showing up for the day with a high-five and a “Good Morning!”

“They line the entry way to the school, getting kids motivated to start their week off right,” says Assistant Principal Lindsay O’Leary.

This month, they created motivational posters for students that will be taking the STAAR test.

“To have the Kindness Crew be models for our younger Bengals has gotten my 2nd grade class excited about completing kindness challenges. When they see those older students are motivated each week to do something kind for others, they want to follow along, which brings our whole school together,” says second grade teacher, Christi Elrod.

One of the favorite challenges so far has been the “Talk to Someone New” Challenge, where kids are encouraged to say hello to a student they have never met.

Bryant Elementary staff hopes that the Bengals’ example will inspire other Katy ISD campuses to join in. “The culture of kindness we have here at Bryant has really been in large part to the intentional importance our counselor and administrators have placed on being kind to others. There is not just a “beginning of the year push” to have students exhibit kindness, but a purposeful, sustained effort to keep kindness on the hearts and minds of our students and faculty,” says Elrod.