Tom Tolen / news@whmi.com

Kindness and respect are being emphasized this week for the 2,000 students at Brighton High School. Since there was no school Monday due to Presidents’ Day, and teachers had a professional development day, "Kindness and Respect Week" is being observed today through Friday.

“We firmly believe kindness and respect should be a top priority today,” says Matt Evans, who - with the recent retirement of Gavin Johnson - is now interim lead principal at the school. He gives credit to high school counselor Kris Nelson for spearheading Kindness and Respect Week.

"Kindness has become a tradition at Brighton High School and is a reminder that it should be at the forefront of everybody’s interaction every school day…and in their life,” Evans says.

Evans says the Peer Mediation group and SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) — which acts as a suicide prevention group — have taken a lead role in organizing the events and activities that will be taking place during Kindness and Respect Week.

Other activities will include giveaways at lunches in which students sign small tokens which are then given to other students The tokens can be picked up at the entrance to the cafeteria where students are also encouraged to sign a Kindness Pledge and follow through with their pledge by acts of kindness, respect and inclusion.

School windows painted with scenes depicting acts of kindness have been organized by various school groups.

On Friday, school will be dismissed early, at 1:30 pm, for the students to cheer the Brighton and Hartland Unified Sports teams in a basketball game in the large field house.

Brighton High School was named an ESPN Special Olympics Top 5 National Unified School in 2018 for its inclusiveness and its Brighton Unified Sports programs in basketball, flag football and bocce. In Unified Sports, special needs students are paired with their general education peers and participate in one of the three sports as a unified team.

“We’re looking forward to a great week,” Evans says.