With the possibility of more budget cuts in the offing, at least area educators don't have to come up with the price of airfare or hotels to attend the 25th annual K-12 Character Education Conference July 8-10.

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Center for Community of Caring is sponsoring the event for about 170 educators from Sarasota County School District and across the nation and Canada at Sarasota's Hyatt Regency. That number surpasses last year's attendance of 130 in Salt Lake City. Additional sponsors are Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice and the Center for Social and Character Development of Rutgers.

The Shriver center, located at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, offers a comprehensive K-12 character education program based on five core values of respect, responsibility, family, truth and caring, according to Penny Keith, professional development director.

"We provide teachers with character education principles, strategies and activities to implement the initiative throughout the school," Keith said.

Whole school

Community of Caring is a K-12 character education program that involves the whole school community -- students, teachers, parents, administrators, classified staff, volunteers and ancillary personnel. In Sarasota County, it falls under the Because It Matters civility initiative.

What started out as a mechanism for creating kinder, gentler school environments for children with mental retardation has grown into a whole-school, comprehensive program to help all children gain the skills to become happy, independent, responsible decision makers. Shriver, sister of Sen. Ted Kennedy and the late former president John F. Kennedy, had a special needs sister, Rosemary, and founded the center.

As a result of the Community of Caring program in schools, "Young people would be able to make decisions that would enlarge their capacities to contribute to the goodness of their families, schools, communities and nation," said Shriver in a brochure.

District schools

While all schools in the Sarasota County Public School District work at incorporating character education into the school environment, only 14 out of 43 public schools were official Community of Caring schools in 2008-09. That number will increase to 18 in the 2009-10 school year.

The main reason for the small number? Finances.

"It takes money for training to be officially called a Community of Caring school," said Mark Grossenbacher, assistant principal at Sarasota Middle School and Community of Caring trainer. He will be a presenter at the July conference.

Grossenbacher was assistant principal at Heron Creek Middle School in North Port when that school became the first Community of Caring school in the district. In 2006, HCMS was named No. 1 in the nation by the Character Education Partnership in Washington, D.C. This year, Sarasota Middle School earned the distinction of top School of Character in the state and earned an honorable mention at the national level.

Of the 14 participating schools, four are in Venice: Laurel Nokomis, Venice Elementary, Venice Middle/Oak Park South and Venice High. Next year, Venice's Student Leadership Academy also will participate.

VMS/OPS, a year-one Community of Caring school, has already won state awards. During the conference, Crystal Coluzzi will receive the 2009 Community of Caring Outstanding Student Award, and the school will receive the award titled 2009 Building Bridges: Including More Children in a Community of Caring -- a very special award only given out one other time.

Goals

The goal of Community of Caring is to instill civility in children and help them carry civility into the workplace and community as they grow up, according to Grossenbacher.

Grossenbacher said the goal for schools is to make sure every child has an adult mentor to instill inclusiveness. He said studies have shown children who don't feel included at school just may not show up for classes.

"To welcome a kid to school does not take extra time at all," he said. "To greet a child outside the door in the first period of school can make all the difference in their day."

Grossenbacher uses various leadership principles to inspire teachers when training them in Community of Caring applications.

"Look at sports," he said. "Ask how a coach got a child to play with heart and ask how to get a child in the classroom to perform with heart. It's a relationship-based instructional philosophy. It's owning the child."

Funding

Funding for the Community of Caring program in district schools is through Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice.

"Typically, Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice funding is for South County," said Wendy Deming, the foundation's chief of staff. "But civility does not have a border, so we opened up the borders for North County schools."

Funding goes to help train lead teachers in the schools to implement the program as well as Community of Caring banners and materials.

"The opportunity to participate in Community of Caring through the Because It Matters initiative is available to all schools in the district," said Greg Luberecki, GCCF spokesman.

"In the first year, we set a cap of up to 14 schools to ensure funding and that the program worked well," he said.

"The second year (2009-10), we opened it up to four more schools. The application is still available on our Web site, www.gulfcoastcf.org, and schools can still apply for a Community of Caring grant. We have a rolling deadline," Luberecki said.

Benefits

According to literature from the national center, schools adopt Community of Caring to build a strong sense of community for the children and to ultimately improve educational outcomes. Dr. William Sullivan, with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, listed seven attributes of the program.

* Fostering character and citizenship development.

* Improving school attendance and academic performance.

* Improving school climate and create a sense of caring.

* Including students with disabilities and foster greater acceptance of diversity.

* Creating safe school environments by preventing bullying and other forms of violence.

* Preventing teen pregnancy through a youth-development focus.

* Reducing tobacco, drug and alcohol use.

ablackwell@venicegondolier.com

By Audrey Blackwell

Staff Writer