WBCH offers this space to superintendents of area schools to highlight what is happening in their districts. This posting is from guest writer Angel Christopher, Social Studies teacher at Maple Valley Schools:

“We currently have eight teachers signed up and using an effective communication/behavior program called Class Dojo. This program allows teachers to award points for good behaviors and take them for behaviors that need to be worked on.

Most teachers have a reward system based on points in their classrooms.

“This, in itself, makes Class Dojo a wonderful program, but it is so much more. The program allows teachers to take attendance and create random groupings, as well as share character videos and other classroom features. Class Dojo is also a great communication tool.

“Teachers can send messages home to individual, or all, parents of the classroom (once parents have signed up with the available invitations), as well as post photos on individual student “stories” to share with parents. There is also a school “story” portion that allows teachers to share information with parents from all grade levels of the school – i.e., announcements, pictures of notes sent home, upcoming events, etc.

“This year, Maplewood has eight teachers, 296 parents, and 675 students enrolled in the program. We have shared 339 class “story” moments, and sent out 3000 messages. There have been 9918 parent views of updates and 439 likes on posts. Class Dojo has proven to be an invaluable tool in communicating with parents at Maplewood, and I hope to see it grow in the future.”