TO:                  All Staff

FROM:            Suzanne Kelly, Chief of Staff

                        Yusef Mgeni, Director, Educational Equity

RE:                   No Name Calling Week

Designed primarily for grades 5-8, No Name Calling Week encourages school or class-wide awareness campaigns.  There is a curriculum for No Name Calling Week that focuses on James Howe’s The Misfits.

No Name-Calling Week 2008 will take place during the week of January 21-25, 2008. Schools across the state and the country will participate by engaging in educational activities aimed at ending name-calling and verbal bullying of all kinds in school settings.

Words hurt.  More than that, they have the power to make students feel unsafe to the point where they are no longer able to perform in school or conduct normal lives.

For further information and SPPS resources, Contact Nate Gottfried at the SPPS Out for Equity Program office at (651)523-6322 or by e-mail at nathan.gottfried@spps.org.  To get answers to many Frequently Asked Questions about No Name-Calling Week, you may also visit the national web site at http://www.nonamecallingweek.org.