Deerfield Elementary School is helping all students develop the world-class skills and life and career characteristics of a 21st century learner. We embrace the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by staying true to our mission of creating a caring community that develops lifelong, successful leaders and learners.
DES became a Lighthouse school in November 2018! Staff members of DES underwent training on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Kids (Covey). This enables them to equip students with the skills they need through the 7 Habits. These habits will prepare our students for the 21st century global workplace and community. The Leader in Me philosophy focuses on developing student leadership skills through goal-setting and leadership opportunities. During 2018–19, DES students continued to create and maintain Leadership Notebooks where they set and tracked personal and academic goals, conducted student-led conferences and showcased their talents during our Lighthouse visit in the fall.
This past year, students entered year five of our German Partial Immersion program. Kindergarten through fourth grade Immersion students learned mathematics and science in German and language arts, and social studies in English. All spoken language and print text in mathematics and science are in German, while all materials in ELA and social studies are in English. DES continued our partnership with Germany by being a PASCH school. The PASCH initiative is a global network of some 1,800 schools that recognize the importance of German. The goal is to provide students and teachers with lasting qualifications, and to form a long-term international learning community between German programs both in the United States and abroad.
In our proficiency-based learning model, our students and staff continue to take steps in our customized learning system that allows students to progress through grade-level standards as they master them. We accomplish this by flex grouping within and across grade levels, through the use of programs such as Achieve3000, SmartyAnts and Front Row. Mastery is recorded in our personalized learning standards-based report card, designed to track students’ learning and progress in lieu of a traditional report card. Our 1:1 mobile computing model through the use of iPads allows students to create, evaluate and defend their productivity. Our staff members work with an outside consulting group to help us analyze our data.
Students, staff and community members have many opportunities to contribute through involvement. DES continues to emphasize helping our children to understand how to improve our world. Students of all grade levels take part in multiple service-learning opportunities throughout the year. Students and families can participate in schoolwide leadership roles, Student Lighthouse Team, Watch D.O.G.S. program, Deerfield Diplomats, Artsonia, TNN News Crew, Deerfield Deputies, Veterans Day Assembly, Leadership Day, Leadership Track Meets, Spanish, PTO, Run Hard, BOWS Choir, Field Experiences and Honors Choir.
During the 2017–2018 academic year, DES showed academic successes in many areas. Students in third grade showed strengths in ELA (69% scored Met or Exemplary on SC READY). Our fourth graders excelled in ELA (60% scored Met or Exemplary on SCPASS). Fifth grade students also performed highly in the area of social studies (75% scored Met or Exemplary on SCPASS). Our staff is in year three of using Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study — Reading as part of our ELA curriculum to accompany the Units of Study — Writing. This reading series builds on decades of teaching and research in literally tens of thousands of schools. The spiral curriculum of Everyday Mathematics helps ensure students master key concepts by continually revisiting content in a variety of contexts over time. Much of our professional development was focused around our challenging areas in order to improve our students’ achievement, develop lifelong successful leaders, foster a community of collaboration, and provide instruction that is relevant and rigorous.
Jan Malone, Principal
Beth Quick, SIC Chair