For the first time, a Cherry Hill high school has been named a “National School of Character.”
The Cherry Hill Alternative High School, home to approximately 50 students, has transformed into a model school for citizenship, respect and community. It received the national designation from an organization called Character Education Partnership. The group designated just 41 National Schools of Character in the United States this year.
The alternative high school pulls students from around Cherry Hill. The students go there because they are struggling or don’t feel comfortable in East or West.
The smaller school allows the students to receive personal attention and better acclimate them to associating with other teens their age. This has made character building a huge focus of the faculty and administration.
“We built in a lot of different things with the kids to build character,” said Dawn Lacy, a teacher at the school. “We learned how to interact with the students to bring in character traits.”
School counselor Dianne O’Brien said the school incorporated three specific traits into its everyday teaching: respect, responsibility and citizenship. These traits are essential building blocks in class each day.
The response from the students has been incredible. O’Brien said many of the teens make progress at the alternative school in ways they never did at East or West.
“They didn’t really realize it,” she said. “We worked really hard with emphasizing and pointing things out on a daily basis.”
Emphasizing respect, responsibility and citizenship in the classroom every day is the main reason the alternative school received its designation. The school applied in previous years, but fell short in the eyes of the Character Education Partnership. Lacy said officials from the CEP visited the school last year. While they liked many of the projects the school was working on, they asked the school to emphasize character traits more in its everyday school life. This led to a greater tie-in between the school’s three quality traits into lessons.
“In order to be a recipient, you need to be a model for other schools,” Lacy said. “It’s really a model that can be replicated.”
Outside the designation itself, O’Brien said there has been a tangible difference in the development of the students. She described the school as having a community. For the first time this year, students funded their own senior trip and created a mascot, the tiger.
“I really think the majority of our students do well here because it’s much smaller,” O’Brien said. “It’s a strong family atmosphere. They are able to come here even if they are struggling at home or in school.”
Students who do well at the alternative school have the option of returning to East or West. However, O’Brien said a number of students have chosen to stay at their new school.
“All of us feel very happy and energized when we see the transformation when they walk in for the first day of school,” O’Brien said.
