‘The Lambert Way’ has been an integral part of the Longhorn community since 2021. Founded by Spanish teacher Kelsey Hill and the rest of the Lambert Way team, the movement is in charge of the matrix ‘PRIDE’ which can be found around the school. However, the movement is about more than just posters — it’s a lifestyle.
“The whole big thing with the Lambert Way is creating a set of clear, common expectations and hopes for what we want students to take away from their time at Lambert,” Hill said. “All of the letters in the acronym are just setting some clear guidelines or expectations for how we want students to behave across campus but then also at any school sanctioned event.”
Prior to its introduction, the team conducted student interviews to assess students’ attitude towards the school and any improvements they had in mind. Students felt that Lambert’s culture was becoming more toxic through excessive competition in clubs, academics and sports, which was hurting the school’s overall energy.
“We want to try and shift the focus by doing these student recognitions, building up teacher morale and just showing students that they can be seen for being more than just a grade in the gradebook,” Hill emphasized.
To institute this shift in culture, over the past couple of years, the Lambert Way team has worked to recognize the students and staff who embody Lambert PRIDE.
Since the end of last year, the team started hosting monthly student recognition lunches for students who were acknowledged by their teacher for exceeding expectations.
“It gives them a chance to see that they are being recognized for their character,” Hill mentioned. “We felt, and students felt, [character] was sometimes not as easily recognized as a competition or academic excellence like numbers or data, but just for how they are.”
The team has also been working on teacher support and encouragement throughout the year ,such as the cookie cart brought out during Valentines Day.
As the Lambert Way team looks to add new events and build off on past successes, they still face the challenge of fully understanding the community’s needs to thrive.
“We have a lot of stakeholders, which are people in the community — teachers, students, parents and even businesses in the area,” Hill noted. “In order for this program to work, we need feedback from those entities.”
As the years go by, the team hopes to keep growing the Lambert Way and integrating it fully into the school’s culture through Lambert ‘PRIDE’. Although the letters and the posters may change, the message and camaraderie that it brings to Lambert will always be the same.
