South Dakota Department of Education Abstract

Contact: Sue Burgard
700 Governor's Drive
Pierre, SD 57501-2291
(605) 773-5238
sue.burgard@state.sd.us

South Dakota Character Education Partnership

Grant Number: R215V010007
Project Period: 7/1/01–6/30/04
FY 2001 Award: $338,542
FY 2002 Award: $333,229
FY 2003 Award: $328,229

The South Dakota Department of Education and Cultural Affairs (DECA) and its Local Educational Agency (LEA) partners, Brookings, Meade, Shannon County, and Watertown School Districts will engage in the planning, program selection, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of comprehensive K–12 character education efforts. The four selected school districts, along with up to six additional districts selected through a competitive application process, provide opportunities to pilot character education concepts and strategies in sparsely populated and small city locations.

Along with the national leadership in the character education movement, we recognize that there is no single most effective design for effective character education. At the same time, some models are clearly superior to others when it comes to demonstrating an ability to achieve the desired outcomes of the programs. South Dakota will be concentrating on carefully researched and successful programs, using the approach suggested by President George W. Bush in his education position papers.

This will be a three-year project that begins with the identification of effective programs and moves on to program selection by the LEA partners. Each pilot site then works with its advisory committee to design the most appropriate implementation strategy and timeline. Special attention is given to linking the character education effort to other programs and resources that support similar goals.

DECA leads a dissemination process that builds the capacity of non-partner schools to implement character education at their sites. They will be emphasizing the use of technology in their dissemination design, which will allow them to move beyond the borders of South Dakota with the outreach activities.

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