Caring School Community™

Product or Programme · All products and programmes
Evidence · 4 claims (1 for, 1 mixed, 2 against) · 1 study (1 quant-synthesis), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description

A multiyear K–6 school improvement programme developed by the Developmental Studies Center that uses class meetings, cross-age buddies, family activities, and schoolwide community-building to promote prosocial behavior and shared values.

Components

• Caring School Community™ program with four schoolwide components: Caring School Community™ (formerly the Child Development Project) is a multiyear school improvement program for all students in grades K–6 that aims to promote core values, prosocial behavior, and a schoolwide feeling of community. The report states "The program consists of four elements originally developed for the Child Development Project: class meeting lessons, cross-age “buddies” programs, “homeside” activities, and schoolwide community." Class meeting lessons use scripted sessions to teach values such as fairness, caring, and respect; buddies activities pair older and younger classes; homeside activities are conversational activities sent home to families; and schoolwide activities bui (What Works Clearinghouse (2007))

Claims

• The Child Development Project/CSC shows potentially positive effects on student behavior, with an average improvement index of +8 percentile points [+W]
• CSC/CDP shows no discernible effects on academic achievement [-W]
• CSC/CDP shows no discernible effects on knowledge, attitudes, and values [-W]
• Statistically significant effects reported by the CDP studies were not statistically significant as recalculated by the WWC [~W]

Related Products and Programmes

-

Key Sources

• What Works Clearinghouse. (2007). Caring School Community™ WWC Intervention Report, Character Education. U.S. Department of Education. http://www.devstu.org/csrd/cdp_index.html

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	product
id	caring-school-community
title	Caring School Community™
description	A multiyear K–6 school improvement programme developed by the Developmental Studies Center that uses class meetings, cross-age buddies, family activities, and schoolwide community-building to promote prosocial behavior and shared values.
status	review
moved_from	element/caring-school-community-four-component-program
product_kind	programme
generated	by process:sweep-kinds on 2026-10-10
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	1 — what-works-clearinghouse-2007

Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.