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Doing It The Wright Way
IRONWOOD TOWNSHIP - Tuesday evening the Ironwood School District held a community forum at Gogebic Community College. The focus of the forum was the district’s “Character Education “program; Sandy Swartz, Character Education Consultant, was the guest speaker. Mrs. Swartz has been in Ironwood this week visiting with the district personnel and had made an appearance Monday evening at the District’s Board of Trustees monthly meeting.

Sandy is the wife of Mike Swartz the Superintendent of the Jefferson School District in Jefferson Wisconsin. The Jefferson District has been nationally recognized as a “School of Character”. Both Sandy and Mike have been involved in Character Ed for some time and they have both seen the great results that a character building program can have on the students.
Swartz told the group that among other things, character building will reduce time lost to disruptive behavior and time out of the classroom due to behavioral situations and the result will be higher grades as well as good citizenship as well as a lower crime rate.
According to Tim Kolesar Ironwood’s School Superintendent, the students are buying into the program. The program is just beginning in our district and according to Swartz the program will take 5 to 7 years to accomplish the desired goals.

Mrs. Swartz elaborated on the social changes and pressures that have been adversely affecting the behavior of today’s population, including poor role models, media influences and apathy.
The program intends to build on nine character traits; Respect, Fairness, Honesty, Caring, Self-Discipline, Courage, Perseverance, Responsibility, and Citizenship. Each month the school district will focus on one of the character building blocks.