What is a Social Contract?

Capturing Kids' Hearts is a program used throughout Bay City ISD. Every campus and employee on the campus has been trained to use this program. There are so many great things about CKH's but one of the most prevalent throughout Cherry Elementary is the Social Contract.

Your students may have came home and told you that they signed a social contract in their classroom. Within each of their classrooms, students work together to build a social contract. They begin by asking the following questions within their group:

1. How do you want to be treated by me (leader)?
2. How do you want to be treated by each other?
3. How do you think I (leader) want to be treated by you?
4. How do you want to treat each other when there is a conflict?

As a whole group, the students go through adding words to their social contract and agreeing upon those words. Words might include respectful, honest, trustworthy, helpful. When adding the word to the contract, the teacher might ask "what does that look like", "how could we show that in the classroom". If a word is said more than once, the students will put a checkmark next to that word to show that the class thinks that it is important. When the students are satisfied with the words on the contract, the class agrees to the social contract by signing it. 

Below are a few examples of contracts from the Cherry Elementary classrooms. In grades 2nd through 5th grade, the teachers guide the students through these steps to help them create a contract for each of their classes. This ensures that the students have specific words and actions that their class has agreed upon. 

Mrs. Frankson's 1st Grade Classroom

Ms. Jernigan's Kinder Classroom

Mrs. Becker's 3rd Grade Classroom

Mrs. Ressman's 3rd Grade Classroom

Mrs. Johnson's 5th Grade Classroom

The great thing about social contracts are that they can be used universally. The staff at Cherry has a social contract that we refer to in our meetings or if a conflict arises on campus. Some teachers have even decided to use them at home with their own families. 

Each week we will be sharing a word from the Cherry Elementary Social contract with you. Take time to talk with your students about the word that we share. What does it look like? What do you expect from them in regard to that word? How can they show that they understand what that word means?

We look forward to sharing more with you, 
Mrs. Hagg
Cherry School Counselor