April 27, 2018

In the fall of 2017 our school applied for accreditation as a Lighthouse School exemplifying all dimensions of The Leader in Me in our classrooms, school wide practices, and communication with students and parents. We self-assessed our progress on each area: school environment, school communication, data tracking, and leadership development within individuals and school systems. Our teachers and students participated in the site visit on December 12, 2017. The visit included an interview of a panel of parents expressing thoughts and ideas regarding their child’s development in a Leader In Me school.  The visit by the Leader In Me Team was inspiring! On January 21, 2018 we were informed we achieved accreditation as a Lighthouse School for Leader In Me. Worldwide approximately 2, 500 school practice Leader In Me paradigms, but only a few have met the criteria for accreditation. We are one of only 355 schools worldwide to achieve this honor and status!!  This process has enabled our students and teachers to become leaders in their own lives, and advocates for schoolwide leadership. We are so proud of our school community in making this honor a reality. It has been, and will continue to be, a journey of commitment and focus within our school.

We teach and practice an inside out model of personal development: be proactive; begin with the end in mind; put first things first; think win win; seek first to understand, then be understood; synergize; and sharpen the saw. Students in each class create a Mission Statement to guide their learning. Each Mission Statement supports our school-wide goal of improving performance in content area vocabulary development. Each quarter students define Wildly Important Goals (WIGS) to chart their progress towards meeting academic and personal milestones. We create class, grade/ team, and school wide data walls to document our progress towards reaching our schoolwide WIGS. During the 2017- 2018 year each grade level, ESOL, and related arts teams tracked student progress through a random sampling method towards the acquisition of content vocabulary. Our success rate is 96% of our students met or exceeded their goals!! As we expand our knowledge of The Leader In Me, teachers and students revamped our quarterly celebrations, formed a Student Lighthouse Team, created school wide clubs to explore our voice and passions, and met regularly as Shared Leadership Teams to review areas for growth. We celebrated our third annual Leadership Day on March 14,2018. We live Learn, Love, Lead in our approach to teaching and learning, and our responsibility to one another.

We demonstrate strong achievement in Math and Reading academic growth on Measurement of Academic progress (M.A.P) testing. Preliminary mean score data in each grade level indicates areas of growth for our school, the NWEA Mean Growth, and Beaufort County School District Mean Growth

Math  MAP Mean Score Growth Data

*Grade not tested in the Spring

ELA Mean Score Growth Data

*Grade not tested in the Spring

Preliminary indicators growth in grades 2 and 4 as being higher than the Beaufort County School District overall mean, and the mean NWEA. Kindergarten growth is strong in math and reading

Adrienne D. Sutton

Principal