Vestavia Hills Elementary East, founded in 1949, is a K-3 school in the Vestavia Hills City School District with a high amount of positive parental involvement. Parents can be found volunteering at school constantly, and the PTO regularly reaches 100% membership for parents and teachers. Character education became a formal part of the state’s curriculum in 1995 upon the legislature’s passage of Alabama Act 95-313. Teachers began formally documenting the teaching of character traits, and during the 2000-01 school year a team was formed and plans written to enhance character instruction. A school motto was adopted that stakeholders felt epitomized what they wanted children to understand about character at their young age, and that they believed summed up all the state’s character traits. A simple version of the Golden Rule, it states “Treat others like you wish to be treated.” Over the years this “Golden Rule Initiative” is stressed repeatedly with all students and connected with every community service project and significant school event. It is displayed throughout the building, taught explicitly by staff, and elaborated upon during disciplinary interventions. Starting in kindergarten, children learn the meaning of this rule and practice it until it is memorized. In this middle/upper income community, we strive to teach our students how to effectively give back to others; we are seeing excellent results in meeting this challenge through our character initiative.

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