MANTRA

We believe strongly that the education process is a social, emotional, and academic endeavor. Our School Improvement Plan has a social-emotional resilience strategy as well as a G.R.I.T. mantra which represents four core values: Growth Mindset, Respect, Integrity, and Teamwork. The word grit itself, as defined by New York Times best-selling author and psychology professor Angela Duckworth, means passion plus perseverance towards a long-term goal.

Our G.R.I.T. mantra was developed with input from students, staff, and community leaders. In addition to being visibly posted all over Ionia High School, our teachers and administrators verbally reinforce and teach character lessons based on our G.R.I.T. mantra. School wide expectations are explicitly taught and modeled using our G.R.I.T. mantra. We positively reinforce the core values within G.R.I.T. at monthly public award ceremonies, on social media, and in monthly newsletters.