It’s “Kool” to be Kind.

Or at least that’s the message that four Westport parents started trying to spread to the student community last year. Cindy Eigen, Lynne Goldstein, Sarah Green and Melissa Shein are the four founders of the Kool to be Kind organization, whose goal is to spread the word to third graders that being kind is much “kooler” than being a bully.

The mothers are all members of the Anti-Defamation League’s education department, and all of them have children, giving them an insight to the importance of education on bullying.  Their experience with young children also helped them notice that most bullying begins in elementary school.

“We wanted to make a difference and decided that the best way to do that would be to start a program that would make kids listen and perhaps change their behavior at a young age,” said Green.

This organization has been a three-year process, and while last year was the pilot run, this year more kids are involved with the goal of making a difference.  There are about 45 high school students taking part in the program this year, and meetings have just begun to start the teaching process.

“So far we have meet a couple of times to learn the basics about the club and to learn all the information about bullying,” Luci Slater ’14 said.

Slater is a new member of both the organization outside of school, and the club that meets in school.  According to Slater, the club at Staples is utilized to discuss the outside organization, while the outside of school program is where the planning on what the group will teach third grade students about takes place.

While Westport parents created K2BK, the school club was organized and created completely by student members of K2BK at staples.

The founders of Kool to be Kind completely support the students’ efforts to expand the organization by making the addition of a school club.

“This will surely prove to be a wonderful place to brainstorm ideas and help to spread more empathetic behavior around school and around Westport.” Green said.  “The four of us will be involved in the club in any way that the students would like us to be but it is certainly their creation and their space to promote ideas.”

One of the main focuses of this program is to have older kids teach younger kids about bullying, in the hopes that the younger kids will look up to what the older kids say.

Co-president of the Staples club, Jackson Yang ’13, noticed that the young kids see him amongst other K2BK members as “the big cool high school-er.”

The high school student’s work to educate third graders about all the people who are involved in a bullying case, including the bully, the victim, and the bystander.

Another lesson they teach is that “If you do something nice for someone, they can pay it forward,” Yang said.

Both the student’s and the adults in the program are doing their best in an effort to stop bullying, specifically in elementary schools.  Not only are the high school kids helping the elementary students to become better people, but also, throughout the process they are becoming better people themselves.

“K2BK really belongs to the high school students. They have made it their own and with that ownership we have seen spectacular growth and maturity,” Green said.  “[The founders] are honored to be working with such wonderful teenagers and feel truly privileged to be working with every one of them. They are changing our town.”