CHARACTER COUNTS! may help prevent future hazing incidents at Flower Mound High. Currently, 18 students and an ex-coach face criminal charges for alleged hazing at an August 2005 party.

In response, the Lewisville Board of Trustees approved a new hazing and CHARACTER COUNTS! curriculum for all students in January 2006.

The curriculum provides a working definition of hazing so students can better tell if they are committing it. "Sometimes kids haze and they really don't know it's hazing," former Lewisville athletic director Neal Wilson told the Lewisville Leader.

It also lets students know how to act if they find themselves in a hazing situation.

Mr. Wilson helped create the curriculum and starting next summer all sixth-graders will spend a week on the material, which has a major section on the Six Pillars. High school P.E. students and those who take part in extracurricular activities will also study the material.

Hazing is a serious, underreported problem in high schools and colleges. According to one benchmark study, 1.5 million high school students endure hazing every year, and some 50 percent are athletes.