A Promise the School Keeps Together
Every morning at Rockdale Intermediate School in Rockdale, Texas begins with a familiar routine. Over the announcements, students lead their classmates in a kindness pledge the student council helped create, with signed copies posted in every classroom as a reminder. Principal Monica Elizondo has noticed something special: without being asked, students have started reminding each other to say the words like they mean them.
The pledge serves as the school’s shared definition of kindness:
As a Rockdale Tiger, I pledge on this day
To always be kind in every way.
To celebrate the differences that make us strong
And create a safe place where we all belong.
To promise my actions and words will lift others
And encourage all Tigers, our sisters and brothers.
Knowing our challenges and successes help us grow,
Together, We Pledge Kindness. Go, Tigers, Go!
Rockdale is a small, rural district serving about 1,500 students. Of these, 315 students are enrolled at the intermediate campus for grades three through five. Counselor Kim Ransom, now in her twentieth year as a school counselor and her third at Rockdale, leads the kindness work. She kicks off each six-week period with a lesson delivered through PE so she can reach every student at once. Teachers follow up in classrooms. On Tuesdays, a question tied to that six-week’s character focus is shared on the morning announcements for class discussion. Students are starting to recognize kindness in one another, too, pointing out when a classmate has done something kind and asking for it to be shared on the announcements.
During the school’s “Kindness Lights Up the World” project, classes created paper light bulbs filled with encouraging words and phrases and added them to a tree display in the hallway. Students pass by it daily and read what their classmates wrote. The same is true of the kindness tigers, bracelets, and morning shout-outs that celebrate students who are noticed doing good. The goal is not to add one more thing to the plate. It is to make kindness part of the way school is already lived and led.
Principal Elizondo can point to specific students whose growth has been clearly visible. She describes children who arrived at the beginning of the year angry and withdrawn, but who now walk the halls smiling and greeting adults.
“Students may still face challenges outside of school,” she explains, “but once they arrive on campus, they know we are happy they are here. They smile, offer fist bumps, and even hug some of the adults who welcome them.”
This transformation has helped create a warm, safe environment for all students. Principal Elizondo attributes these positive changes to the consistency of daily practices—such as the pledge, intentional greetings, and the commitment of adults to ensure every child feels valued and welcomed from arrival to dismissal.