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RIVERTON — At Foothills Elementary School, kindness rules the day.
The school has made a yearlong commitment to kindness and acceptance, an effort that resulted in a kinder and gentler school climate and kind acts spreading throughout the community.
To reward and encourage more acts of kindness, Foothills Elementary School Principal Cherie Wilson donned a top hat and red tuxedo, a la "The Greatest Showman" (make that Show-woman) to lead a kindness assembly at the school Monday afternoon.
With Wilson at center ring, students and staff alike took part in the Greatest Kindness Show, busting a move to music but also acknowledging as a school the countless acts of kindness Foothills' 1,048 students have extended this school year.
"They're little things. What you see a lot is if someone drops their tote tray, someone is there to help pick it up. Or maybe someone forgot their pencil and someone will get them a pencil," Wilson said.
They're small acts, but they add up to a school climate where kindness to other and kindness to self are the norm, she said.
"I've noticed discipline go way down since the beginning of the year. The problems we have to deal with now are little tiny things," Wilson said.
At the start of the school year, Foothills Elementary School students were challenged to write down acts of kindness on slips of paper to form a chain. If the chain was long enough to stretch around the school by the end of the academic year, Wilson said she would allow students and staff to tape her to a wall in the school.
Acts of kindness multiplied, both within the walls of the school and outside.
Crossing guards who rarely step foot in the school have reported that students routinely thank them for helping them cross the streets safely.
Although this is Wilson's first year as a principal, the school secretary who knows most of the students and their families said she was struck by the difference the emphasis on kindness has made in the lives of students who last year were shy or appeared to have few friends.
"Now they're opening up. They feel like they're part of something," Wilson said.
Monday's assembly was the brainchild of fifth-grade teacher Katie Thomas, who leads the schools "excellence team."
She recorded a video of Wilson in her "Greatest Showman" attire, dancing about the school.
During the assembly, the video turned live with Wilson entering the school multipurpose room in full costume, leading the student council members, all of them dancing. The event launched a week of kindness at the school, which will culminate with Wilson making good on her offer to be taped to the wall.
While Wilson said the students will probably never forget the event and the importance of kindness, she has other goals in mind, creating a school culture and student body where kindness is front of mind.
"These kids are just stepping up and helping not just their friends but other people, no excuses," Wilson said.
