Vandals tear down 'Kindness Wall' at Novato school, children respond with more kindness

A Marin County  school reacted to an act of anger with kindness.

Last weekend, vandals tore down part of what the students at Rancho Elementary School in Novato refer to as their Kindness Wall. They started creating the wall, along a green fence in front of the school, last October by writing on plastic tags acts of kindness they either did or witnessed, and then they attached those tags to a fence at the school. 

The students had accumulated more than 1,000 tags as part of their "do good, be kind" program, first reported by the Marin Independent Journal. 

But when they returned to school on Monday, many of the tags had been ripped down.

“After they processed their anger, they said were going to fill it back up,” said fifth-grade teacher Vanessa Coleman. The students are slowly filling the fence back up with plastic tags that say "Do Good. Be Kind."

Novato High School and some of the middle schools in the area are also planning to contribute to the fence.