The School Counselors of WMS inspire students by planning the Week of Respect to remind everyone to be kind to one another and to promote a statewide event.  

The week beginning the first Monday in October is recognized as the Week of Respect  in New Jersey schools.  Each morning, students will hear morning announcements related to the topics of friendship, respect, and kindness.

Teachers are given a handout to open up discussion on respect and give the students an opportunity to draw or write the ways they show respect to their friends. Teachers focus on discussions throughout the week on the topic of respect and how we follow all our school rules to be respectful to each other.

Ms. Torrella, school counselor, said, “hopefully this changes the students [positively] by doing different activities and by becoming one community.” The students made a chain and a peace sign, they signed a pledge and also participated in the breast cancer awareness walk. This event had the school come together and made students realize that they can change the way they treat everyone.

Activities that were performed were a sentence starter to make students realize what strengths they had. Students also wrote positive remarks about classrooms they were in. The week ended with a breast cancer walk to raise awareness about breast cancer.  

Ms.Torella and Ms.Valente researched the sentence starters and the anti-bullying rules which were read on the announcements. The breast cancer walk was planned by the Student Council and supervised by Ms.Dymond and Ms.Estenes. The peace sign started three years ago; Mr.Cardoso and Mr. Salinas brought it to attention and the school continues to keep the tradition alive.