Hometown Heroes: Rockwall ISD

DALLAS - The 13,400 students in the Rockwall Independent School District have adopted Rachel's Challenge for the second year in a row.

Rachel Scott was the first student to be killed at Columbine High School. She was 17 years old.

Rachel was a proponent of kindness and compassion. She wrote extensively about those two values in her journal. And even though Rockwall's students never met her; they've embraced what she believed in.

Last year Rockwall ISD created "Start a Chain Reaction." Students spent the year learning how kindness and compassion can make the world better. Then they made a paper chain of kindness that represented more than 123,000 acts of kindness and compassion.

On Thursday at 7 p.m. Rachel's Rally will be held at Lake Pointe Church at 701 E. Interstate 30 in Rockwall. Thousands of parents, students and community members will turn-out for this community event which celebrates The Power of One.

More than 100,000 KC Friends will be on display. The KC Friends are paper people cut-outs. For the past year every time a student did something nice for another student; they wrote it down on one of the KC Friends.

I saw things written down that talked about a "student helping another pick up papers that fell to the floor," or a student "who sat with another student who was sitting alone at lunch".

Gene Burton, the Superintendent of the Rockwall ISD said these "aren't random acts of kindness, these are intentional decisions to act with kindness and compassion."

The Rockwall ISD counselors have made their schools the nationwide models for kindergarten through 12th grade for Rachel's Challenge.

For more information about what RISD's Rachel's Challenge, visit www.rockwallisd.com or call 972-771-0605.