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Ogdensburg schools' 'Positivity Project' aims to build relationships, character this school year

Posted 9/1/18

By THOMAS LUCKIE III OGDENSBURG – Schools in the Ogdensburg City School District plan to help students continue to build solid relationships and reinforce quality character traits through The …

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Ogdensburg schools' 'Positivity Project' aims to build relationships, character this school year

Posted

By THOMAS LUCKIE III

OGDENSBURG – Schools in the Ogdensburg City School District plan to help students continue to build solid relationships and reinforce quality character traits through The Positivity Project during the upcoming school year.

Principals from Grant C. Madill and John F. Kennedy Elementary Schools and Ogdensburg Free Academy detailed the project before the Board of Education at Monday’s meeting.

OFA High School Principal Cynthia Tuttle explained that the project has been embraced by several neighboring school districts, including Heuvelton Central and Lisbon Central.

Tuttle also noted that Todd Kaiser, a fifth-grade teacher at A.A. Kingston Middle School in Potsdam, has taken on the role as somewhat of a local expert for The Positivity Project.

Administrators and teachers interested in the project across the K-12 levels attended a daylong workshop led by Kaiser in March, according to Tuttle.

Teachers involved in leading the project at each of the district’s three schools have spent time preparing for further implementation of the initiative over the summer, Tuttle said.

Kennedy Principal Susan Jacobs pointed out that the project has also been implemented by the military and large companies like Amazon with the goal of promoting positive culture in the workplace.

The nationwide project, also known as P2, was co-founded by Mike Erwin and Jeff Bryan, both graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point who were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan a combined five times for 52 months.

The co-founders started the project with the goal of empowering America’s youth to build strong relationships by seeing the good in themselves and others while internalizing the belief that Other People Matter as a path to personal happiness.

The project quickly expanded from one partner school in Liverpool in 2015 to over 180 partner schools in 2017 and aims to reach 2,000 schools and one million students by 2022.

More info: www.posproject.org