Easy Integration, Big Impact: The Positivity Project for Principals

Summary

• Discover how The Positivity Project (P2) simplifies school leadership — and makes fostering a positive school culture actionable. 
• Learn about the streamlined implementation plans, teacher-friendly resources, and comprehensive support for staff and families that make P2 an effective tool for principals. 
• See real-world testimonials, data, and research showing the significant impact of P2 on school culture and student development.

Introduction

Imagine walking into your school each day knowing you have a clear, effective plan to take action and foster a positive school culture – with minimal effort. 

Research shows effective school leaders have a big impact on student achievement and teacher retention. But principals face immense responsibilities that can be time-consuming and overwhelming – managing school operations, supporting staff, ensuring student success, and fostering a positive school culture, to name a few. 

That’s why we’ve designed The Positivity Project to quickly and seamlessly meet the needs of school principals – to help you accomplish more results in less time. 

With over 800 Partner Schools in urban, suburban, and rural communities, we are confident that The Positivity Project’s focus on character and relationships fits into nearly every school culture. To ensure easy and effective integration, we provide streamlined implementation plans, teacher-friendly resources, and comprehensive tools for communicating with staff and families.

Achieve More in Less Time: Streamlining School Culture with P2

Streamlined Implementation Plans

Investing time on the front end for planning maximizes long-term impact. However, leaders need their plans to work. Plans that are too long – or confusing – won’t get read or implemented. That’s why our 1-Page Implementation Plans are designed with the following in mind: 

• Clear and Concise: Our 1-Page Implementation Plans provide a clear, concise roadmap for integrating The Positivity Project into your school. These plans are editable PDFs, allowing you to customize them to fit your school’s unique context and needs.
• Hyperlinked Resources: The plans include hyperlinked resources to support P2 integration at classroom and school-wide levels, in staff professional learning, and in communication with families. We have also included nine sample plans – differentiated for elementary, middle, and high school – to help you better visualize and create your own P2 plan.
• Sustainability and Engagement: Refreshing and implementing your plan on an annual basis ensures long-term sustainability, enthusiasm, and engagement – making it easy for you to foster a positive school culture.

A principal shared, “The Positivity Project has the potential to shape the culture of an entire middle school in a way that brings people together, provides identity, and acts as the foundation for many other school efforts. When implemented purposefully and consistently, P2 opens the door to the place students and staff want to be.”

Empowering Principals: The Advantage of Teacher-Friendly Resources

Teacher-Friendly Resources – Easy and Engaging

Implementation is all about executing your plan and making it easy for your staff to use. Because The Positivity Project is easy to integrate into daily routines and engaging for students, teachers actually teach the lessons. By consistently teaching students about character strengths, a common vocabulary emerges, leading to a more positive culture where both students and staff want to be.

• Ease of Use: Principals appreciate that The Positivity Project does not require a ton of work for teachers – and can be used by staff with limited supervision. Because it’s easy to use, teachers actually teach it rather than just letting it “sit on the shelf.” As a teacher highlighted, “It’s so easy to teach” the character strengths. 
• Engaging for Students: Because students are engaged with the lessons, teachers want to teach The Positivity Project. An elementary teacher said, “I think the teachers are realizing that this is more powerful than just sitting down and teaching a lesson every day” because “kids are really relating to this.” And, a middle school teacher noted, “My students already know that as soon as reading is over, they get ready for The Positivity Project, and they get their notes out and everything. And they love the videos. And that’s when I really got into it. After I saw how receptive they were and their feedback. What they gave me was amazing, and I continued it all through the school year.”

As one teacher shared, “I can honestly say I have never felt so good about a character education program in my teaching career. I can actually see this program working every day.” Another teacher highlighted that P2 is “game-changing,” helping students become more understanding of themselves and each other​. As research highlights, P2 supports students’ sense of relatedness and their emotional and behavioral development.

From Overwhelmed to Overachieving: P2’s Support for Principals

Comprehensive Support for Staff and Families

All school community members can help ensure that P2 implementation happens easily and effectively. That’s why we provide extensive professional learning options for staff, as well as resources and communication tools for Partner Schools to use with families. 

Professional Learning

• Extensive Training and Communication Resources: We offer comprehensive training and communication resources to ensure all staff members are on board and confident in implementing P2 from day one. This includes P2 100 On-Site Training, on-demand professional learning tools, and weekly emails highlighting the upcoming week’s character strength.
• Ongoing Professional Learning Tools: To maintain enthusiasm and effectiveness throughout the year and beyond, we provide ongoing professional learning tools. Our P2 for Educators content enhances school culture through an explicit focus on the well-being of the adults in our school communities. Additionally, 3 Slides helps school leaders incorporate P2 into already scheduled meetings, offering time-crunched leaders an easy-to-use tool that brings professional P2 content to faculty meetings and other training settings in as little as 10 minutes.

As a recent P2 100 Training attendee shared, the training “was informative and let me work with my grade level team to understand how to use P2 for my classroom culture. I was able to share comfortably with my team and we have new activities that are easy to do.”

Family Engagement

• P2 for Families: P2 for Families is an easy and effective way for families to discuss the importance of character strengths and positive relationships. Differentiated for grades Pre-K-K, 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12, each character strength follows a 1-1-3 model: 1 quote, 1 video, and 3 questions to drive conversations around character at home.
• Weekly Family Letters: We support communication with families through Weekly P2 Family Letter Templates specific to each character strength and Other People Mindset element. These editable templates include essential information about the following week’s character strength, along with instructions for families to access P2 for Families. Weekly P2 Family Letters can be sent home in print form or digitally, ensuring the entire school community is engaged and informed.

As one school explained, “Parents have noticed the difference The Positivity Project makes as well. They report that their children talk about the character strengths at home and strive to demonstrate them outside of school. This extension of learning into the home environment reinforces the positive behaviors and attitudes being taught at school, creating a cohesive support system for the children.”

The Positivity Project: Your Secret to Unlock a Thriving School Culture

Principals have noted that with a strong school culture fostered by P2, they can concentrate on supporting the handful of students facing significant challenges, knowing that the school environment will continue to function smoothly. This positive culture not only supports the overall school community but also aids in the reintegration of students who are dealing with emotional or behavioral issues, ensuring they return to a welcoming and stable environment.

As one school noted, “It has created a common language to use across all grade levels when referring to behaviors or actions. Students are more aware of their actions and are able to identify traits such as integrity, curiosity, bravery, and they remember that their actions affect other people. Students are noticing each other implementing these character traits and can also make text-to-self connections across the curriculum. Since implementing P2, we have had at least a 75% decrease in bus violations/write-ups, as well as a 50% decrease in recess and school behavior issues.

“Why does P2 work well for our school? We are a small school with students from all different backgrounds. P2 gives students the opportunity to become one. They are being taught teamwork and kindness and being mindful of others no matter what their background in life may be.”

Conclusion

Principals across the country have witnessed the power of P2. As a principal reflected, “By embracing P2, and making it part of our lifestyle, I believe firmly that whether consciously or otherwise we began to live a more meaningful life both in and out of school. Delivering lessons from a common resource bank and with a common purpose strengthened our team and standardized our practice and language…I think this saved me as a leader, reminding me why I started working in education and what it means to serve others.”

The Positivity Project is more than just a character education program – it’s a comprehensive approach designed to make a lasting impact on your school’s culture. By providing streamlined implementation plans, teacher-friendly resources, and support for staff and families, P2 makes it easy for principals to integrate into their schools. 

With P2, you can achieve greater results with less effort, ensuring that your school not only meets but exceeds its goals.