Responsive Classroom is a character education program being implemented at Chancellor Livingston School in grades K - 5. This program is an established "best practice" that is used in hundreds of school districts. The Responsive Classroom program at Chancellor Livingston School:

* Supports a safe learning climate for pupils and adults, consistent with the school district's mission, vision and core beliefs

* Establishes a common language of expectations for pupils' behavior that will be used by all staff

* Helps to develop a positive social and emotional climate for pupils while integrating academics

* Provides pupils with strategies for positive behavior and interaction with others

* Builds responsibility for one's actions

Essential components of Responsive Classroom are:

* Conducting a Morning Meeting in each classroom

* Modeling of strategies by the adults in the school

* Establishing rules for an emotionally and socially safe environment

* Providing logical consequences for misbehavior

Implementing the learning skills associated with Responsive Classroom will take time. Professional development opportunities for fifty Faculty and Staff members began in September 2007 and will be on-going. The next phase of training will be to provide all non-instructional staff members, bus drivers, and parents with a working knowledge of Responsive Classroom. This latter training will occur in the 2008 - 2009 school year.

For detailed information on Responsive Classroom, you are encouraged to access the following website: www.responsiveclassroom.org. In particular, the "About" and "Research on RC" sections may be of particular interest.

Questions about Responsive Classroom at Chancellor Livingston School may be directed to Dr. Edward J. Sullivan (Principal) or Mr. Marvin Kreps (Director of Curriculum and Instruction). Respectively, their email addresses are: esullivan@rhinebeckcsd.org or mkreps@rhinebeckcsd.org.