Communication Card (C-Card)
The implementation of the C-Card grew out of a need to increase student, teacher, and parent accountability for building a school community dedicated to character development. We sought advice from other Imagine schools and adapted the Communication Card to meet our school’s needs. Before instituting the Communication Cards, it was difficult to get students to recognize that their behavior is directly correlated with their academic success. Effective communication of expectations between teachers, administrators, and parents was also lacking. Our middle school students travel between two buildings to attend class and this presents a number of unique challenges for establishing consistent consequences for students. Elementary teachers and staff often expressed a need to know what behaviors middle school students were being held accountable for and how they should respond. As a result, students lacked consistency from class to class, and there was very little documentation to identify what was going on throughout the day. The C-Card has reduced many of those concerns and students have begun setting C-Card goals themselves. It is a common occurrence to have students excited to show you how well they have done throughout the week using the documentation on their C-Card.