A Spirit of Giving

And GCS students shared that spirit of volunteering with the local community. Take for instance the district's recent Habitat for Humanity project. Approximately 290 GCS employees and students donated more than 2,000 hours of service to build a house for a local family. When a student from Southern was asked why he continued to go back and dedicate his time to the project, he simply stated his desire to help a family in need.

That's the goal of GCS' Character Development program, an integral part of the overall curriculum. Character development is reinforced through service-learning projects that benefit our community; through civic education that teaches our students to be responsible citizens; and through character education that helps define the key qualities of our value system. It's a message that permeates every classroom, at every grade level, in every school.