At the beginning of the school year, Ripon High school started a new class. A character building class called Character Strong, where students go to their advisory classes and develop news habits that better them in their lives.

“We have to build habits. And to make something a habit you need to do it constantly over and over and over before it comes a habit,” Principal Keith Rangel states. Rangel was first introduced to the teachings of Character Strong while at a California Activities Directors Association convention. And from the explanation alone, he knew that this new teaching was needed to be administered to Ripon High.

“Are we working to be better people? Sometimes we forget,” Rangel said was the reasoning for Character Strong. “Attitudes, you’ll see the attitudes that are positive, are contagious. Attitudes are more contagious than any virus, or any bacteria, so when a teacher comes in or a principal comes in or a student comes in, and they see a great attitude, guess what they will spread. Great attitudes.”

Other faculty, such as science teacher Ann Pendleton, is extremely motivated to show the importance for this new curriculum, “But in the real world you have to present yourself in a way that you are a person of character, that you’re honest, you’re caring, you’re hard working, you care about other people, and those are important qualities to have.” Rangel stated that at Ripon Elementary, they are starting Character Strong at sixth grade.

“I believe some freshman have some difficulty with transitioning from elementary school… I think that will be very important and help improve our statistics for freshman year discipline,” Vice Principal Victor Ramirez says.

“We’re all speaking the same language, we’re all practicing the same dare throughout the week so that way it’s not just a couple of classes or a couple of teachers, it’s everybody working on the same thing at the same time, I think that’s going to equal better success for the whole school,” says Ramirez.

Rangel then finished with, “Who needs character building? We all do.”