OCTOBER 13, 2023

“They weren’t reading their peers’ facial cues or body language properly; they weren’t treating each other right," she continued. "It was a real problem.”  

Enter the Kindness Club: a student-driven after -school program dedicated to encouraging students to be kind to themselves, their peers, their school and their community. Pulver developed the idea in March 2022 and invited students to join her after school for lessons and projects focused around kindness.  

“I had to think outside the box because there isn’t a quick fix,” she said. “It seemed like a good place to start.” 

Twenty students signed up for the first meeting where they enjoyed a lesson and shared ideas as well as a surprise treat – ice pops. Ten more joined on week two and the numbers just kept growing. This year, 72 students attended the first Kindness Club meeting. 

Students in the Kindness Club have completed a number of projects since its inception, including created posters with kind statements, pictures or challenges for the school hallways, collecting trash from the district campus, becoming pen pals with students in another district and creating laminated holiday placemats for a local community of senior citizens. 

They kicked off the 2023-24 school year by painting rocks to beautify Alden's entrance. Students also brought home a kindness Bingo card full of acts of kindness to be completed by the following meeting, where they were treated to certificates for free scoops of ice cream at the local Stewarts Shops. 

Fifth grade student Amelia Witt was one of the first students to join the Kindness Club. Almost two years later, she’s still going strong. 

“I joined because it was a new club and sounded fun, and it is!” Amelia said. “I get to hang out with new friends and just have a fun time coming up with ways to make people smile and be kind.”

Her favorite project so far has been her “rock family” – a group of painted rocks with playful faces that she placed in the garden at the front of the school. 

"I love it because the faces are so silly that they make everyone smile,” she said. 

Kindness Club newcomer, third grader Dante DiCintio, chose to join because he had never done anything like it before and thought it might be a fun new experience and help other kids. 

“We need the Kindness Club here,” he said. “I love it because it’s fun and makes people happy. It even has kindness in the name. We all HAVE to be kind!” 

Nine Millbrook High School students in grades 10 through 12 have been participating in Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES’ Online Courses for the 21st Century program, and they’ve hit the ground running. 

The program, known as OC21, is a primarily virtual program that enables students to take elective courses alongside teachers and students from across the local region. Utilizing a blended learning approach, students and staff collaborate through two facetoface meetings and online. The semester-long program ends with a symposium during which students have the opportunity to present what they have learned to peers and instructors. 

Sophomore Logan Shaughnessy chose to take an OC21 course after attending a presentation by PNW BOCES Project Coordinator Gregory Fredricks. He signed up for Gaming the Story: Writing a Video Game Narrative – an experience designed to introduce students to the gaming industry and methods that video game story writers use to design immersive experiences.  

“When I heard about it I thought to myself, ‘YOLO!’ said Shaughnessy with a laugh. (That’s the acronym for “you only live once.”)  

“Seriously though, I’ve been interested in game design for years and I liked the chance to explore that more,” he added. 

Fredricks said that OC21 is based on the idea of creating blended learning experiences.  

“We were seeing that students needed a skillset to participate in both in-person and virtual instruction,” he said. “It offers opportunities for students to learn and interact with others virtually and digitally.” 

In addition to its formal goals, Fredricks said that an unintended but indispensable benefit is that the format lends itself to encouraging students to advocate for themselves in an academic setting. Students must learn to independently come to their instructors with questions and concerns – a skill that they do not necessarily use in high school. 

“It creates a bridge between the high school and post-secondary experience,” said Fredricks. “Students tend to have a hard time with advocacy skills. What has happened in the program is that the physical gap makes it even more important for students to reach out to their instructors, a skill that they’ll need in the future.” 

This aspect is not lost on tenth grade student Adileen Francia, a student in OC21’s Introduction to Anthropology course. 

“I chose this program because it seemed like a good opportunity to learn more about other people and engage with people from other districts,” said Francia. “It’s been a different experience than other things I’ve done. It’s way more independent; it’s teaching us not to rely on teachers to remind us to get things done.” 

Eligible students will have another opportunity to sign up for the OC21 program in the second semester of the school year. For more information about the OC21 program please visit website at https://www.pnwboces.org/OC.