Anti-bullying heroes boost Ridgefield schools

RIDGEFIELD — The Hero Movement is a unique anti-bullying campaign created by students, for students. Andrea Reinertson’s leadership class wanted to create a movement for positive social change within the Ridgefield School District. To achieve that, they blended lessons from two different units, applying marketing and change-building skills to positive character development.

The class kicked off the campaign with a series of “character challenges.” Each day, students received a new challenge focused on a different character trait — kindness, patience, respect, commitment, forgiveness, selflessness, honesty, humility and patience. The challenges started easy, like opening the door for someone you know and also for someone you don’t.

The challenges gradually required more involvement, like spending time with someone who they normally wouldn’t, and actively listening to that person and focusing on treating them with genuine respect.

By the time the students completed the challenges, they had a better understanding of how to build character by making small positive steps each day. Their next goal was to work together to put character change into action schoolwide. They applied what they learned to developing the Hero Movement anti-bullying campaign.

Reinertson had blue bracelets left over from a prior marketing class project. The message on the bracelets, “Join the Hero Movement,” tied in perfectly with bullying prevention. The students distributed them to 100 students they identified as heroes, and gave three bracelets to each teacher in the school. Each bracelet came with a note explaining the project and asking students to help prevent bullying.

From there, other students started asking how to get bracelets. The leadership class created additional ways to promote and distribute the bracelets. They wrote morning announcements to alert all students to the new campaign. School social media accounts promoted Hero Movement events and ideas, and they created posters with QR codes so students could apply to participate.

So far, the campaign has been a great success, with students across Ridgefield High School asking to participate. The leadership class hopes to keep momentum going in a number of ways, from Hero Movement social events to creating safe spaces for bullied students.