08/20/2026
Earlier this week, Hillcrest teachers found themselves doing what teachers do best when they gather after a summer break: talking over one another, testing ideas, laughing at familiar classroom moments, and picturing the faces of students who will soon fill the halls. Their smiles were electric and their voices raised to fill classrooms that were quiet a week earlier. They gathered back together for the start-of-school in-service training to refuel and refocus for another incredible year in the lower school.
The theme for the start-of-school training was simple: We don’t repeat training. We revisit truth. One of those truth foundations is the Four Habits of the Heart: attentive, obedient, respectful, and responsible. Those words are familiar to teachers and students alike, but this week's training pushed teachers to look beneath them. From that training,the the room grew animated, as teachers began working through their PRIME training: Praise, Reflect, Incentivize, Demonstrate, and Enthusiasm. The exercises in this lesson seemed small at first. Engage a student who usually struggles with transitions, quietly closes a book, pushes in a chair, and gets in line without being reminded. What happens next? In the rush of a school day, moments like that disappear easily because trouble is often louder than quiet obedience. The disruptive student commands attention while the student making a good choice can pass almost invisibly through the room.
PRIME asks teachers to reverse that pattern by becoming deliberate observers of what is good, and then provide students with specific praise. It's an important approach to students and classroom culture at Hillcrest.
Teachers participated in other training throughout the day, working together to dial in the ways God is calling them to lead their classrooms and the school, forming hearts and minds that love and worship the Lord.
