Implementation
Implementation
On the pages below, check out resources designed to support you in planning an effective scope and sequence, training staff, and communicating with stakeholders.
Embedded Files
Creator
For me, the story of Be Good People is unavoidably personal.
For me, the story of Be Good People is unavoidably personal.
I've worn a few hats in public education — School Psychologist and Paraprofessional, to name a few — but I always found the most joy when I could make things easier for people. I spent much of my personal time during my first 5 years at SCRED trying to ease the burden of SpEd paperwork. Then, in March 2020, I began the Be Good People journey.
My goal for Be Good People
My goal for Be Good People
My goal was to make sure that every school in America could access a usable, quality curriculum for teaching life skills. I didn't care if they used something else—I just wanted to make sure they all had something. No students left "out in the cold."
I wanted zero barrier to entry — no paywall, easy to train on, easy to use, easy to fit into any master schedule, etc. And I wanted the larger SCRED Life Skills site to bring coherence to a collection of issues that often feel overwhelming to educators.
I would have pursued this regardless of COVID-19, but the 2020 lockdowns were a big factor in me hitting the gas pedal as hard as I did. Behavior challenges were going to grow.
Gratitude is a guiding light, and I am thankful to my early collaborators—see below. They believed in the vision when few did and helped me give Be Good People strong bones. And Molly taught me everything I know about behavior. 😉
I am also thankful to work in school districts who made it possible for Be Good People to have a global impact on millions of children. SCRED and our member districts have an innovative culture and an MTSS legacy beyond our region. Our communities have big hearts, and Minnesotans value taking care of their neighbors.
DIY-ing all of this, however, hurt me and my family.
DIY-ing all of this, however, hurt me and my family.
Most of the time I've ever spent on Be Good People and this website was my personal time—late nights, weekends, school breaks. I deeply regret that my wife lost her best friend to this work for years. My mind was constantly absorbed by this work, and I literally shape-shifted, gaining 80+ pounds by using food as a coping strategy. Be Good People would not exist without my better half and her incredible mind and heart.
Folks often ask me: "Why didn't you sell it?" "Why didn't you put it on a marketplace?" "Why aren't you a millionaire?" I did think about those things in March 2020 — but if they had been my primary concern, I do not believe that Be Good People would be what it is. It wouldn't help as many kids. It's not why I did this.
I hope that the Be Good People curriculum and this website always continue to be forces of kindness in the world. I also hope that sharing my bittersweet story helps even one public educator out there to find healthy balance in their vocation. 🫶
Phase 1: The Spring of 2020
Phase 1: The Spring of 2020
The Pitch
The Pitch
A few weeks before COVID-19 lockdowns began in March 2020, I had accepted a brand new position in our district focused on core behavior systems. I had already been with SCRED for five years at this point (as a School Psychologist).
I pitched the curriculum to SCRED's then-Executive Director, Jamie Nord, during our first meeting about my new role. Jamie gave the green light for me to proceed with the project. Molly (see Collaborators) and I had previously adapted material from published curriculums for our students at the Chisago Lakes Education Center, and I learned a great deal from that work and my experiences teaching our students. My vision for Be Good People, though, was to start from the ground up, building a curriculum totally from scratch and using Minnesota's benchmarks (published in 2018) to organize it.
The Collaborators
The Collaborators
I asked friends and colleagues Raycheal, Molly, Courtney, and Ry to collaborate with me on what would become Be Good People.
At the time, all four were employees of SCRED or a SCRED member district; however, they have all since moved on in their careers. Underneath their photos, I've highlighted the lens that they each brought to Be Good People.
We first met to collaborate on April 4th, 2020 — over Zoom. 😷😉
Raycheal Zamora
Raycheal Zamora
School Psychologist, Special Education Teacher, Mother
Molly Gavett
Molly Gavett
Board Certified Behavior Analyst, Principal, Mother
Courtney Strelow
Courtney Strelow
Special Education Teacher
Ry Bostrom
Ry Bostrom
Special Education Teacher, Mother
Version 1.0
Version 1.0
I brought the group a draft of what skills would be covered, at what grade levels, and how each skill would be defined. Over a series of Zoom sessions, we talked through this draft, line-by-line, to ensure Be Good People skills were clearly defined and grade-level appropriate.
That spring, I designed the initial templates for Be Good People's lessons, posters, worksheets, etc. I was also building the SCRED Life Skills website (this website) where the curriculum would be hosted. At some point, the low priority task of choosing a name for the curriculum became urgent, and by the end of a dog walk one day, I had four thumbs up in the text chain for "Be Good People."
By late May 2020, the very first version of Be Good People was published on this website. Initially, the curriculum was K-12 only. There was no Core Edition and Intervention Edition; it was a single version. There were also no Extensions or Community Building activities — only Lessons. I spent the summer of 2020 finishing the worksheets, revising materials, and adding the curriculum's first visual graphics.
Phase 2: Fall 2020 - Present
Phase 2: Fall 2020 - Present
Intensive Development
Intensive Development
School years 2020-21 and 2021-22 were a near constant development process. Like the Ship of Theseus, I essentially had to rebuild the curriculum, piece-by-piece, until it barely resembled where it started in spring 2020. I attended standing meetings with teachers in the growing number of SCRED schools who were using the curriculum. Feedback from these teachers, student and staff surveys, and other collaborators led to a non-stop stream of updates to the curriculum.
Although this workload led me to burnout and was deeply painful for me and my loved ones, I do still have immense appreciation for the thousands of voices, loud and soft, who all helped shape Be Good People into what it is today. Every curriculum isn't for everybody, and I don't see Be Good People as "perfect" by any stretch — but I do think that it has been helpful to so many people because every detail of it was molded by boots-on-the-ground feedback, hashed out face-to-face with hundreds of real teachers. There's really no substitute for that.
Key Upgrades
Key Upgrades
Color & graphic design: BGP started out looking pretty dry and minimalistic. Folks wanted more color and graphics. I had to teach myself graphic design skills in order to create the many graphics and icons that populate Be Good People materials.
Media: I had to find the thousands of photos, videos, and quotes included in Be Good People.
Separate editions: In spring 2021, I split the curriculum into separate Core and Intervention Editions, with shorter and longer lesson materials, respectively. Later on, I wrote a few thousand new practice scenarios for the Core Edition lessons so that students receiving interventions would be able to practice using "fresh" scenarios.
PreK: In spring 2024, I collaborated with Melanie Stever (Chisago Lakes Primary School), Alyssa Jackson, and Rob Benner (both SCRED) to design Be Good People's PreK lesson materials.
You can browse every mailing list update I've ever sent out to learn more about BGP's evolution.
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