The students, teachers and staff of Indian Knoll Elementary have a history of giving back that ties to the school’s character education program. But last year, Principal Kim Cerasoli wanted to do more.
“When we looked at our core values, we started talking about knowledge and service,” said Cerasoli, now in her fifth year at the Canton school. “We do things like food drives for MUST Ministries around the holidays, but we felt this was an area where we could do a bit more and teach all students from kindergarten through fifth grade about giving back.”
Cerasoli and her colleagues brainstormed ways to get the approximately 860 students to do more. Then they took those ideas to the school’s six “houses,” groups of students across all grade levels.
“Each house has a teacher who talked to their group and came up with a list of top choices,” said Cerasoli. “The kids were really involved.”
The results expanded the school’s outreach considerably, she added.
“For instance, we have a teacher whose parent is in a nursing home, so one group adopted those seniors for a year,” said Cerasoli. “One month there was bingo with prizes; another group wrote out Valentine cards. The seniors were thrilled to have the attention.”
Another group supported an animal shelter; others wrote thank-you notes to nurses. The year-long projects recently were honored with a Promising Practices award from character.org, a national nonprofit that promotes positive character development in students.
Indian Knoll was one of 152 schools across the country and only one of four in Georgia to be honored. (Cherokee’s Liberty Elementary, also in Canton, has won recognition in the past and was also included in the latest list.)
The honor has increased the determination to do more, said Cerasoli.
“We’re now focusing on being kind, and we really want to drive that point home that we can do something for our school and community by showing kindness,” she said. “Sometimes elementary-aged children can be so focused on themselves, but if they see other people have problems, they learn they can come together as a community to solve them. And if they have a problem, there are people in the building who can help them, too.”
Sarah Duckett saw the program’s impact first-hand. Last year, her 9-year-old daughter, Aubrey, and two friends took the initiative to organize a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Hospital.
“These three third-grade girls came up with the idea to have a pajama day and asked kids to bring a stuffed animal and a dollar,” said Duckett. “They collected money in buckets at the front doors and worked with the school treasurer to count it out, so they saw that their work brought in $600. It was one of my proudest mom moments to witness how the different projects they’d done instilled the idea of giving back to the community in them.”
Information about Indian Knoll is online at https://www.cherokeek12.net/indianknolles.
SEND US YOUR STORIES. Each week we look at programs, projects and successful endeavors at area schools, from pre-K to grad school. To suggest a story, contact H.M. Cauley at hm_cauley@yahoo.com or 770-744-3042.
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