S POTLIGHT: THE HONOR CO U N C I L AT T R I N I T Y E P I S CO PA L S C H O O L
Continued from page 17
associated with an election to that kind of office. And it works especially
because the culture of the school has so incorporated the Honor Code
and Council into the fabric of the community that our students don’t
know a world without it.
It also works because we place utmost importance on confidentiality
within the Council, and the Council respects that necessity, again because of the nature and culture that has come to characterize Trinity
Episcopal School, and because they realize soon that sitting across the
table from their peers who have been called in front of the Council is
difficult and that confidentiality offers safety for all involved.
Trinity’s founders envisioned a school in which the child came first, in
which learning was experiential, and in which there was safety to make
mistakes and learn from them. Our Honor Council operates in the same
way: students make recommendations that honor their peers’ sacredness as children of God as well as offer a chance to redirect, and holding
each other responsible for the wellbeing of the community. The Honor
Code and Honor Council are key components of Trinity’s educational
philosophy and institutional culture, and we couldn’t imagine doing
school without either. l
Fr. Burl Salmon, an Episcopal priest, is the Middle School Chaplain and
Dean of Community Life at Trinity Episcopal School in Charlotte, North
Carolina. He has worked with honor and discipline councils in independent schools in Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina. He can be
reached at [email protected].
Page 22 Winter 2014
CSEE Connections