Lexington High School is helping all of its students develop the world-class skills and knowledge needed to be the epitome of the South Carolina Graduate. Through collaboration, teamwork and self-directed learning, students have the opportunity to learn life and career characteristics, as well as multiple languages.
Although we have used Independent Learning Time for a while, this year we arranged it by grade levels. This gave counseling time to do more group guidance by grades during the school day. It also gave more time for grade-level information and activities. Students were encouraged to use this time to get extra help, work on projects and enrich their learning.
We began a Students in Action group. They received first place in the Jefferson Awards competition for the Midlands. This group collaborated with the entire student body and the community to help others. Their foci were based on the results of a needs assessment: greeting and mentoring students new to Lexington High School; collecting items of need for military personnel of Lexington High School families; and raising funds for cancer awareness and donating to Cancer of Many Colors. These students made an impact on the community, the school and each other.
As our world grows smaller through globalization, we continue to encourage students to have multiple languages. We offer French, German, Latin, Russian and Spanish, and the classes communicate in their respective languages with other schools through technology. Our Russian classes are some of the few offered in the state. Our Russian teacher was recognized as a Claes Nobel Educator of Distinction by the National Society of High School Scholars and one of our students became the first student from South Carolina to get a gold medal at the Olympiada of Spoken Russian, which is sponsored by the American Council of Teachers of Russian. Our immersion classes will be able to get college credit through Advanced Placement classes. The International Baccalaureate Programme continues to expand. Students have their own IB Learning Center that was contributed through a grant from BB&T to impact globalization through innovation.
We are continuing to bolster reading skills across the curriculum. The Word of the Week produced by our student broadcast team, a Reading Day celebration schoolwide planned by our Reading Team and Learning Walks by teachers to check reading skills incorporated into the lessons all helped with raising reading awareness. As a result, our English End-of-Course Exam and ACT/SAT scores improved.
Capturing Kids’ Heart, a program our teachers have embraced, creates a caring, safe environment where students can excel and aren’t afraid to fail and learn from their mistakes. We are blessed to have a caring community and parents who partner with us to support our students. With a tradition of excellence for more than 100 years, Lexington High School continues to exceed the state standards.
Melissa C. Rawl, Principal
Alicia Verburg, SIC Chair