Salt Brook Elementary School

Grades PreK–6 • New Providence, New Jersey 

To enhance its character education program, Salt Brook School students focused on kindness and the effects of being kind to others. The school’s 2005–2006 character education theme was Salt Brook School . . . Pass It On. Inspiration for the theme came from the novel and film Pay It Forward, the story of a boy who inspired to change the world, one kind behavior at a time, without expectation of a reward. Local police department officials kicked off the program by voluntarily cleaning up the school grounds, after which students were charged to keep the chain of good deeds going and “pass it on” to others. First, students had to pass it on through community service. Each homeroom class chose a project to pass it on in their community. Students also had to pass it on within their school community. Both employees and students had to think of a way to pass it on to someone or someplace in Salt Brook. Students placed handprints on the office or classroom door to show that person or class had received a pass it on act. Once the class or office received the handprint, they had to then pass it on to someone else. At the end of the year, each class decorated their classroom door with “how they have passed it on to others this year.”  

Hyde, C.R. Pay It Forward. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1999.