Students spread kindness at Riverdale Elementary

Celebrating Kindness Week is a tradition at Riverdale Elementary. Social worker Claire Steeno said, "Every day, it's our mission to go from good to better to best to achieve success, and part of our academic success is wrapped up in kindness. We like to dedicate an entire week to acts of kindness leading up to World Act of Kindness Day."

For the 2024 Kindness Week, Riverdale staff challenged students to commit enough acts of kindness to fill a giant paper heart outside the library. Classrooms that went big with helping make that happen earned an extra half-hour for their end-of-day Valentine's Day and Kindness Week celebration on Feb. 16.

Staff and scholars heard countless compliments, witnessed numerous helping hands and lost track of how many positive notes and little surprises the intermediate classes created for their primary-grade buddies and vice versa. Teachers handed out more than 1,000 heart stickers for the gestures of kindness they observed over the week.

Riverdale staff's Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) committee coordinated the vision and details for Kindness Week.

Special thanks to the Riverdale Elementary community for submitting this Five Star Story.

This story exemplifies our ELEVATE Focus Area: Diverse Learning. Sharing stories of how students receive engaging learning experiences and the focused-attention they need through appropriate student-to-staff ratios and varied programming.