Our school is helping all students develop the World Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by creating a safe learning environment where students are able to communicate, demonstrate, and master specific skills and standards.
At our school we pride ourselves on being life-long student and adult learners. We realize education evolves as society changes; and for that reason, we monitor and adjust instructional strategies to ensure teachers are modeling best practices within the classroom for our students
Professional development focuses on current student data and school-wide long range plans. Student data is analyzed by our school leadership team and prioritized according to student needs. Our data revealed writing was an area of concern. Teachers studied ELA standards, analyzed student writings, became familiar with writing strategies, and planned ways to grow students in the writing process. Data is used to help differentiate classroom instruction. Members from our leadership team attend monthly meetings and trainings to keep abreast of best practices and current trends in literacy and other subject areas.
Our Master teacher and Literacy coach model and discuss best practices for our teachers in weekly meetings. They also help teachers implement research based reading strategies. Teacher surveys are utilized to help analyze areas of strengths and areas of improvement in our literacy program. These results are included in our Read 2 Succeed Plan. Teachers brought in $7,000 dollars into our school through competitive grant writing. Our teachers participated in a six week study of The Wild Card, 7 Steps to an Educator's Creative Breakthrough. This book helped our faculty focus on the importance of engagement in our classrooms, which ties directly into the concept of personalize learning.
We embrace our diverse student population as we prepare them to be college and career ready. All students are exposed to STEM activities through our Discovery Place class. This class allows students to collaborate to solve real world problems by thinking critically and coming up with solutions. PLTW-Launch is another program that empowers and engages students in compelling activities that relate to the real world around them. This program directs students to their exploratory nature, engages them in learning that feels like play, and encourages discovery. Typing Quest is an online resource for Elementary Keyboarding. It is a fun and effective way to teach keyboarding skills while providing students opportunities to build confidence in their typing abilities. Services such as Response to Intervention, Gifted and Talented Program, S.H.A.R.E program, the program for Exceptional Children and an outside counseling service provide academic and emotional and social support for students in our school. After school activities such as Chorus, Spanish club, and Running Club are extracurricular activities that promotes academics and social skills as well.
Through community involvement we have partnerships with many local restaurants and businesses. These businesses donate prizes for our family events. A local church provides snack bags for the long weekends throughout the school year for several of our students. Many of our students are involved in the Looney Tunes Saving Club. This is a program designed to make saving fun and exciting for children 11 years of age and under. This program is made available to our school through Security Federal Bank. At our school we encourage our students to be safe, responsible, and respectful inside and outside of school.
Bruce Lee – Principal Tracey Dean – SIC Chair