A school must be a safe environment. Students cannot concentrate on learning if they are threatened in any way. But safety is a feeling, a sense of security. It can only exist through consistent, directed efforts. How to create it?

Within six months of the Russell Byers Charter School opening in the fall of 2001, the faculty and staff had already begun to ask this question. Their answer was to look to themselves. They acknowledged that the entire school—the teachers, administrators, students, and even parents—is a community, and that they can determine what kind of community they want to live and work in. Conflict will always arise, but how community members choose to deal with it is what will shape their lives.

This approach directly connects to the school's educational design: Expeditionary Learning Schools. The ELS model is constructed on a series of design principles and practices that stress integrated learning and the development of a safe, cooperative school culture. This culture supports students as they explore their creativity and curiosity, acquire academic skills, and begin participating responsibly in the community. Crucial to this approach is that children believe their learning environment is physically and emotionally secure—and that they learn how to participate in making it that way.

The Peace Committee focused first on setting up a disciplinary policy for the school. But just creating a plan for dealing with disciplinary issues was not enough. A critical component of the RBCS model is that the students take responsibility for themselves and their education and that their teachers give them the tools to be successful in both pursuits. It is possible to learn to promote peace—within oneself and one's community—and the committee set out to institute ways of making this happen.

A critical element in this undertaking was establishing consistent attitudes and modes of conduct among the adults. Everyone—including office staff and teacher assistants on the playground—has discussed and internalized the school's recommended responses to conflict. Key among them is the decision to use language in place of physical reaction.

"Use Your Words!" is now the typical call—from students and teachers—when a conflict arises. Students are supported in isolating the confrontation to the situation at hand, expressing their feelings directly without judgment, taking responsibility for their actions, and seeking a resolution. Even the youngest children, students in the four-year-old kindergarten, are learning to work within this structure.

Talk It Out Program
This four-point process draws on the programs developed by the Teaching Tolerance Project, particularly as outlined in Starting Small, Teaching Tolerance in the Preschool and Early Grades. First used in the four-year-old kindergarten and now extended throughout the school, this approach promotes verbal communication between individuals at odds with one another, the positive expression of one's emotions, suggestions for avoidance of conflict in the future, and active listening skills. The four points work like this:

1. Tell the person what you did not like. ("I did not like it when you took my truck.")
   
   
2. Tell the person how it made you feel. ("That made me angry.")
   
   
3. Tell the person what you want them to do in the future. ("Next time, ask me if you can use it when I'm done.")
   
   
4. Then let the person tell you what they can do. ("Next Time, I won't grab the truck. I'll ask you if I can use it.")

In-Class Activities
Peace-making has become a part of classroom life. Students learn through regular activities that living without conflict is an active process—that they can work to become peacemakers. Morning greetings contribute to this. In many classes, every student is greeted by the entire class at the beginning of the day, which puts each person on an equal level.

Disciplinary Program
RBCS has a no-tolerance policy on violence, but one that offers support and structure for students with disciplinary problems. The policy actively involves parents or guardians in the process, with teachers and administrators helping to create a plan of action with the family for supporting the student in changing destructive behaviors. In the case of continued serious offenses, suspension policies are also set up. Please see the Student/Parent Handbook for a complete outline of the policy.