How P2 and a Ship System Made Us Unsinkable

This article was written by Kathleen Krill, Principal of Country Elementary School in Pinckney Community Schools, Michigan. Kathleen led her school through building a schoolwide Ship System in 2023 and merging it with The Positivity Project (P2) after the district adopted P2 in 2024. She believes every child deserves to attend a school where they feel cared for, seen, and heard.

At Country Elementary, we learned that the strongest schools are anchored in relationships where character is taught, practiced, and celebrated daily.

Where We Were in 2023

As the 2022-2023 school year came to a close, we knew we needed to make a change at Country Elementary. Although we asked students to be kinder than necessary each day over the announcements, there seemed to be a disconnect between our words and the students’ actions. Incidents of students being unkind in the lunchroom, on the playground, and on the bus were common, and they dominated the principal’s time most afternoons.

We asked ourselves what might help us change this. The PBIS team decided the first step was to build a culture where all students had at least one adult they trusted and felt part of a community outside their classroom.

We wanted to build on our three behavioral ideals: be kinder than necessary, show integrity, and be dependable. At that time, we did not have a character education curriculum, and we did not have a structure in our building for building communities outside the classroom.

Ships Instead of Houses

In the spring of 2023, the Country PBIS team traveled to visit two schools that use a House System to create cross-grade-level relationships. The House System works like the houses in Harry Potter, acting as a catalyst for community building and teamwork. The staff unanimously said yes to creating one at Country.

We went all-in on our district’s pirate mascot theme, creating ships instead of houses. We spent the entire summer developing a memorable opening ceremony as a kick-off.

The First Sorting Assembly

On International Talk Like a Pirate Day in mid-September of 2023, we held our first annual ship sorting assembly. Students lined the halls waiting in anticipation. Would they be a Barnacle? A Jolly Skull?

As each child made their way across the stage to the treasure chest, the theme music from Pirates of the Caribbean filled the cafeteria. They reached into the chest, pulled out their ship name, then were escorted by the high school pom team to sit with their shipmates. As the last student made their way to their ship, the staff looked around. We had taken our first step and created eight multi-grade ships.

Matey Meetings and Pearls

In October, we introduced monthly Matey Meetings. During these meetings, the entire staff and student body disperse to pre-arranged locations we call Ports of Call to gather with their shipmates.

In our first year, we leaned into our schoolwide behavior expectations during Matey Meetings. Students took part in team-building activities like the game Scoot, or completed special projects like writing cards to a peer undergoing chemotherapy and collecting items for the local food pantry. We built community outside the classroom and leaned on a common language anchored in kindness, integrity, and dependability.

We also implemented a schoolwide acknowledgment system using pearls, focused on celebrating our students’ positive behavior. Students earned pearls for displaying kindness, integrity, and dependability. Students are recognized individually throughout the week and as a group on Fridays, when the ship that earned the most pearls is announced.

This created a fun and slightly competitive environment. That competitive spirit brought an outcome we did not expect. Our students enthusiastically praise their classmates when they earn a pearl. It was working. We were finally seeing the unprompted kindness from students that we wanted.

Enter The Positivity Project (P2)

In the spring of 2024, our district MTSS team selected The Positivity Project (P2) as our district-wide character education curriculum. The Country staff was thrilled. We finally had character education built into the schedule, and the question became how it would fit with our Ship System.

We kicked off the 2024 school year with our sorting ceremony and an introduction to P2. The K-5 PBIS team members decided that teachers would share the weekly P2 character strength slides with their class four days a week, and administrators would use the 3 Slides during weekly professional development.

Because we loved our Ship System, we continued to hold our monthly Matey Meetings focused on kindness, integrity, and dependability. There was some overlap, and as the 2024-2025 school year closed, we felt like something was missing.

Two Programs, One Structure

The tide was changing at Country Elementary. Our students routinely used P2 character strengths like integrity, gratitude, and perseverance when discussing their peers’ behavior or their own.

Nothing is better than a kindergartner being able to use character strength language to tell you their friend wasn’t showing integrity, or overhearing a second-grade student say:

I lost, but I persevered after losing a race.

Our students were reciting our schoolwide expectations in loud, proud voices without prompting from adults. Our focus on relationships and character development was changing our discussions with students and reducing conflicts during lunch and recess.

We still felt like we were supporting two separate programs. As we reflected on the 2024-2025 school year, we set our focus for the upcoming year: merge P2 with the Ship System.

The Food Pantry and the First Mates

Our Matey Meetings are now an extension of P2. Blending the two has given us a chance to highlight character strengths that students had previously discussed only with their teachers during daily P2 lessons.

In November, we focused on the P2 character strength of gratitude. Our First Mates, second-grade student leaders on each ship, visited the local food pantry. The Rotary Club welcomed the students, took them on a tour, and taught them about food insecurity. As the First Mates piled out of the Pirate Van after their excursion, they excitedly met with Mrs. Dover, Country’s social worker, to help create our November Matey Meeting. During that meeting, the Ship Captains discussed gratitude, and the First Mates shared their experience at the food pantry with their shipmates.

Activities like this turn P2 character strengths into purposeful, actionable Matey Meetings. This focus also gave our students a chance to lean into P2’s belief in giving back to your community, because other people matter.

Golden Pearls

As a further meshing of P2 and the Ship System, we recently added golden pearls to our schoolwide acknowledgment system. The goal of the golden pearl is to encourage students to act on the character strength of the week and to remind staff to look for it and acknowledge it. First-grade teacher and PBIS member Stephanie described it this way;

Golden pearls are now an incentive encouraging even more students to try to practice the character strength that we’re working on during the week through their daily actions and behaviors.

The Lighthouse Award

In January, we drew on P2 resources to create our first mid-year assembly. We celebrated students who demonstrate the Other People Mindset (OPM), presenting them with a Lighthouse Award. That assembly was another step for our staff in celebrating students’ positive actions. A new part of our monthly Matey Meetings is now the announcement of our student and staff Lighthouse Award recipients for the month, which keeps OPM at the forefront of our daily actions at Country.

When we announced first-grade teacher Kim Kijewski as our first Staff Lighthouse Award recipient over the PA, the students erupted into cheers that echoed through the building. It was spontaneous joy, and it was students cheering for someone else’s success, which is one of the five elements of OPM. In that moment, we knew that our efforts to teach and model character were becoming the foundation of our work at Country.

Many Ships, One Crew

Our school culture has changed. P2 and the Ship System anchor us to our belief that academics matter, and that for children to thrive academically, they first need to feel cared for and safe. You make children feel cared for and safe by leaning into character education.

The positive feeling at Country is visible. It shows up in the Lighthouse Bulletin Board highlighting OPM, in the glass jars filled with pearls earned by each ship in our main display case, and in the P2 bulletin board that reminds our students and staff of the character strengths we apply to our actions every day.

The merger of P2 and the Ship System has changed the way we function as a school community. We now use character strengths to guide our behavior and our responses to challenges and conflict. Rather than running a separate character education lesson and a monthly Matey Meeting to review expectations, we have created one structure that teaches character strengths and gives students meaningful opportunities to practice them. We hope that these experiences stick with our students and become the moments they remember from elementary school, guiding their actions at school, at home, and in their community.

Three years ago, we strove to be many ships, one crew, unsinkable us. Today, thanks to P2 and the Ship System, we are many ships, one crew, unsinkable us.