DOWELL, Md. — At Dowell Elementary School, kindness isn’t just encouraged—it’s a way of life. From a student-run coffee cart fostering friendships to a schoolwide initiative that celebrates respect and honesty, Principal Jamie Smith is leading a cultural shift that’s making a real impact. As students and staff embrace these programs, not only is the school’s atmosphere improving, but academic performance is rising as well. Smith and her team are proving that when students feel supported, they thrive.
“This is my first year here,” Smith said. “I was just appointed last summer.”
Smith oversees more than 500 students and spends her days observing classrooms, supporting teachers with professional development, and addressing disciplinary issues when necessary.
“I would say a majority of my time is spent out and about with the kids,” Smith said. “I have a lot of paperwork obviously, but I just save that for the evenings because there are so many things going on and things that need to be attended to with the kids while they’re here.”
Two programs at Dowell Elementary that Smith is especially excited about are Choose To Be Nice and Dowell DAWGS (Diverse, Accepting, Welcoming Group of Students). Both initiatives encourage students to engage positively with peers and school staff.
“We’ve really been working on getting our school to a good place academically,” Smith said. “But we’ve been doing that through the culture more than anything else. What we’ve noticed is that while working on the culture of the school, we’ve seen our academics improve as well. While our thought was that that would happen, it’s starting to show in our data that it’s definitely making a difference in the way we’re interacting with our kids.”
Fostering Positive Student Interactions
The Choose To Be Nice program recognizes students for demonstrating virtues such as respect, honesty, and kindness. Each month, a new trait is highlighted, and students from kindergarten through fifth grade are honored with a group photo displayed prominently in the school hallways.
“The kids have really embraced the program and want to show how responsible and respectful they are to each other,” Smith said. “The way our kids interact in the hallways or with each other, it’s been pretty enlightening. You can really see that just walking in a classroom. You can see how they’re so kind to each other.”
The Dowell DAWGS program, now in its second year, consists of 30 to 40 students. Special education teachers Annette Mullen and Carlyn Wylam help run the initiative, which pairs students to complete activities together while fostering friendships.
“They all work together,” Mullen said. “So they’ll work the coffee cart together, and they’ll do partner activities together, but then we’ll all get together as a big group too. It also gives everyone a way to meet each other. It gives all the staff the opportunity to meet all of the kids in a positive way.”
Mullen and Wylam explained that the program started with teachers nominating students who needed help making friends or improving their social skills.
“It started from a teacher-led space and has grown from there,” Wylam said.
These relationships often evolve into deeper friendships outside of the program.
“We see those partners finding each other at recess and things like that,” Wylam added.
“Helping them join into their friend groups,” Mullen said, “So it’s just building friendships all around—big ones. They’re a really great group together.”
Supporting Students and Staff Through Positive Engagement
Beyond student initiatives, Smith has also advocated for all staff members to receive Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) training.
“This program teaches staff how to positively interact with students struggling in different situations—whether it’s something that they brought from home or something that happened at school,” Smith explained. “It’s affirming how they feel and giving them ways to respond rather than getting angry or upset.”
Smith said the training has had a significant impact, helping teachers handle classroom challenges while strengthening student-teacher relationships.
“They’re able to build those relationships with the kids and have those conversations with them,” she said. “So if we get called to a classroom because a student is struggling, we typically will take over the class as administrators and let the teacher work with the student that’s struggling, because we’ve seen the value in the teacher being able to have that connection with their own student, so that’s something that we’ve really been working hard on this year as well.”
Smith is proud of the work being done at Dowell Elementary and is eager to share the school’s progress with parents and community members.
“It’s really about trying to make school a happy place to be, because for so long there’s been so much stress put on kids,” she said. “We want them to come to school and be happy to be here. That’s been our biggest move this year, and lots of positive feedback from parents with that as well.”
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Impressive initiatives!