Lawrence Middle School students show their respect

About 300 fifth and sixth grade students at Lawrence Middle School gathered in the school’s auditorium on April 11 for their third town hall meeting of the school year to honor their classmates’ achievements, be recognized for their citizenship and to learn about the different programs the school offers.
The letter R stands for respect and the students emphasized that at the beginning of the town hall meeting, as the chorus sang “Respect” the song made famous by Aretha Franklin. The school uses a character education program that instills four positive personality traits: Respect, Integrity, Caring and Honesty (RICH).
Application of the program earned the school some respect of its own from the Academy for Character Education from The Sage Colleges. “I went to Albany to receive this award for our school,” Assistant Principal Christine Moore said. “We received this certificate for being RICH in character and for leadership in our school community. I’m so proud of our students. When you’re kind to your friends, this is doing our best at being RICH in character.”
Another program highlighted was the Self-Esteem group program. Dr. Karen Mackler, the school psychologist, meets weekly with a small group of sixth grade girls. “We are working on developing and maintaining a positive self-image, including good health and eating habits, feeling good about yourself, and how to present yourself to others,” Mackler said.
The girls got up onstage and presented a picture collage to the school. “The collage was a long-term activity after conversations about how you want to present yourself to the world, and accepting yourself for who you are,” Mackler said. “These girls are bombarded with social media, and are often insecure about how they look and how they dress, and they struggle with dealing with disappointment and conflict.”

Next the girls will develop mock resumes and be “choosing what they want to highlight about themselves; showing them that pretty and light-skinned doesn’t go on the resume, while traits such as hard-working and good communication skills do,” Mackler said.
Two students at each grade level were announced Rock card winners, which is an incentive program dedicated to encouraging good citizenship among students. Every time students do something that demonstrates good character, they are given raffle tickets and submit them as entry in a drawing for a prize. The fifth grade winners are Colleen Rivera and Jeferson were the fifth grade winners and the sixth grade winners were Jennifer Martinez and Dilan Gutierrez.
A fourth and final town hall meeting for the school year is expected to be held. The date has yet to be determined.