The Oriskany Central School District is “committed to our tradition of personal attention, positive relationships, and a productive climate for learning.” To support the District's mission, Oriskany is implementing the Positivity Project (P2) at the Jr./Sr. High School for the 2018-2019 school year.

The Positivity Project was co-founded by two West Point graduates who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Inspired to continue serving their nation after leaving active duty, the two decided to make an impact by empowering America’s youth to build positive relationships by seeing the good in themselves and others. The core belief of the Positivity Project can be summed up three words that have become a hashtag for the movement -- #OtherPeopleMatter.

The Project also incorporates 24 character strengths and virtues, such as bravery, creativity, humor and integrity. At the beginning of the school year, each student completed a survey to determine which of the character strengths were most dominant for them.

The P2 People, a group of students and staff who are leading the movement in Oriskany, decided to focus on eight of the character strengths and the ways they can promote them during this school year. Those eight featured traits include hope/optimism, connection/purpose, teamwork/citizenship, kindness, leadership, appreciation of beauty and excellence, perspective and perseverance.

During a school-wide Positivity Project Kickoff assembly on September 26, the school’s P2 People introduced the mission of the project and how they plan to improve their school and community with an “Other People Matter Mindset.”

Following the assembly, students split into groups by grade level and decorated a puzzle piece with images and words that they felt best represented themselves as individuals and their class as a whole. The six pieces came together to form a piece of collaborative artwork which will be displayed in the Jr./Sr. High School for the rest of the year.