Saint Vincent de Paul School develops new incentive program

Courtesy of St. Vincent de Paul School

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SALT LAKE CITY — Saint Vincent de Paul School is starting the academic year with a newly developed positive behavior incentive program called “St. Vincent HEART.”  HEART is an acronym for Helpful, Encouraging, Accepting, Responsible, Together – the positive descriptions chosen for the program to be modeled by the whole St. Vincent community: students, faculty, staff, parents and volunteers.  

 “We have totally revamped our discipline program,” said Vice Principal Sarah Lambert, who took a summer course at Creighton University that emphasized school mission and charism. “Our mission at St. Vincent is to recognize every person as a valued child of God, and we are dedicated to cultivating their minds and hearts,” she said. “Our charisms focus on service and the unique community we have at St. Vincent.  In reflection of this, I found the school’s older system to be too punitive, and  set up an adversarial relationship between the students and teachers. So I spent the summer working with Principal Gary Green and Student Support Team Member Lisa Romero on developing a unique program based on the ideas of restorative justice and positive behavior support systems.”

The HEART program will recognize students, staff members and volunteers who model the HEART behaviors and follow schoolwide and classroom expectations to be safe, kind and helpful. To recognize a student, a teacher will fill out a “St. Vincent’s HEART” form that will be displayed in the main school hallway. Each quarter, these forms will move to the classrooms as more HEART forms are added to the main display.      

 “By focusing on positive behaviors and expectations, we set a new, more positive tone that connects so beautifully to our mission and charisms,” Lambert said. “The discipline system also works at creating and maintaining our community. Instead of handing out warnings, our teachers will restate and reteach the routines and expectations. It fits in really well with the Catholic value of reconciling and restoring relationships. That is our focus, and that is what makes us special.”

Courtesy of St. Vincent de Paul School