Wednesday, July 3, 2024
Three Granbury Independent School District campuses received a significant honor during the regularly scheduled school board meeting June 24.
Acton Middle School, Granbury Middle School and STARS Accelerated High School each received the Capturing Kids’ Hearts Rising Star Award — the highest honor a first-year implementer of the program can receive.
Capturing Kids’ Hearts is a program that equips professionals in K-12 education to implement transformational processes focused on social-emotional well-being, relationship-driven campus culture and student connectedness, according to the program website.
“The Rising Star recognition is what we give to schools who are implementing (the program) with fidelity and consistency,” Nikki Shipley, CKH secondary strategist said during the meeting. “The support and love that I've seen these principals and these teachers give to the students of this community has been very impressive. It’s hard implementing a new system and process in the first year, (but) they've done it really well with a lot of fidelity and heart, so that's why they were awarded these awards, and I'm honored to give them tonight.”
The Capturing Kids’ Hearts program was previously implemented in GISD’s secondary campuses in April 2023, with Stacie Brown, director of curriculum and instruction, advocating for CKH in the hope it would strengthen relationships between teachers and students.
In reading the memo affiliated with the program last year, Brown added that Capturing Kids’ Hearts “trains teachers, staff and administrators overarching skills to use in helping to develop self-management with our students, high performance classrooms, using team building skills and social contracts, techniques for dealing with conflict, negative behavior and issues with disrespect."
As CKH already proved successful in Granbury Middle School, Acton Middle School, Granbury High School and STARS Accelerated High School’s Behavior Transition Center, the professional development program was implemented district-wide in March.
“We did some preliminary data research ... based upon the out-of-school suspension, in-school suspension, partial days, half days, full days, etc. there has been between 25% to 50% decrease in our discipline referrals at our secondary campuses since this was implemented,” Brown said, during the March 25 school board meeting. “I also got some feedback from our principals. Our principals wanted to highlight the interactions specifically with the classroom teachers. The use of affirmations and specific activities and skills that are done helped to build an atmosphere of extended trust with and between students. So, this goes beyond just having our teachers being part of relationships with our students — this is the process of developing relationships between our students as well.”
For more information about Capturing Kids’ Hearts, visit capturingkidshearts.org online.
