The new vision of Lexington County School District One and the inauguration of a three-year plan has provided a fresh framework for the learning engaging our students at White Knoll High School. The vision of the district to “Empower each child to design the future” is a statement of intention to deliver a high-quality and cutting-edge education that creates opportunities for every student in the district to achieve at the highest levels, and imagine their next steps of education and career. The three-year plan directing our work includes four system commitments, which are promises we make to ourselves, our students and our community. These four system commitments are: All students, regardless of circumstances, advance on time, prepared to graduate and ready to enter college, the military or industry with certification; teaching and learning develop power skills in all students; our schools are service-oriented centers of learning, committed to family and community partnerships; and every adult will be equipped with the skills and resources necessary to advocate for and ensure the success of all students. As a school, this year we have focused on the topics of equity, data-driven personalized learning and student engagement to fulfill our commitment to our students.
WKHS strives to foster the recognition of issues of equity in our staff, students and community. As a school, we have developed our ability to recognize the issues of equity that exist in the culture of the school by focusing on the students whom we are teaching. As a means for addressing this goal, the faculty has developed a shared vocabulary around equity and performed a data dig to identify potential issues of equity. In addition, faculty members attended equity conferences sponsored by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and the University of South Carolina. As a result of this work, our faculty was able to engage in meaningful learning focusing on equity, and student behavior has improved at WKHS by more than 25%. Further examples of equity-based results include two events hosted by WKHS. An anti-bullying campaign partnered with a local business to build a sense of unity and pride within our student body, faculty and community. In addition, the second annual Read at the Knoll event focusing on community literacy helped to provide exposure to literacy and free books to all community members in attendance.
The use of data is essential to the daily work done at WKHS. Data informs the decisions that are made to personalize student learning, and data is used to monitor the implementation of different programs. Three assistant principals have received extensive training with inquiry teams and the analysis of data through the New York City Leadership Academy and Lexington District One’s Aspiring Principals Academy. These inquiry teams have used data to perform root cause analysis for the learning opportunities in the school. The resulting shift has improved results on the End of Course exam and the use of data on a daily basis to analyze the quality of learning in the school. Impact Time is a new structure introduced this year to provide students with an opportunity for intentional personalized learning on a daily basis. This 36-minute period of time is designed to allow teachers to remediate and/or enrich learners, based upon student data. The intended impacts of the school’s focus on data-driven personalized learning should be extensive, but already we have seen an increase in the total number of scholarship dollars for the class of 2019 and a 4% increase in the number of students receiving the LIFE Scholarship.
Students learn best when they are engaged and active in their own learning. The opportunities for engagement are extensive in our career and technology classes, where our students continue to compete and achieve at the state and national level. Students competing in DECA, SC SkillsUSA and HOSA won state level competitions, which demonstrated their engagement in their learning. WKHS continues to provide the resources and support to our teachers to allow students to engage in and take ownership for their learning. The Dynamic Learning Project through Google allows our teachers to engage in extensive learning on the Google platform to allow teachers and students to explore exciting new technologies. WKHS continues to grow in the use of the student engagement model. All teachers applied the learning on the student engagement model and one of our classrooms became a district test site for the excellent teaching and learning being done on a daily basis by engaging students, giving them choice and voice in the classroom. Finally, students benefited from improved engagement after teachers received extensive training through the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. This exciting training is transforming our classrooms and the opportunities available to our students.
Empowering students at WKHS is a daily endeavor. Empowerment comes in many different forms. For many students, the relationship with a caring adult, who is committed to personalizing lessons for individual students, can serve as empowerment. For all of our freshmen, it may be a bond with a junior or senior Link Leader that serves as a foundation for empowerment. A number of our students find empowerment and success by competing on the field and in clubs. For many other students, it is the bond and fellowship of our award-winning band, theatre or chorus that empowers them to dream. We are committed to equity, data-driven personalized learning, and student engagement because these strategies invest in our students and ensure that each student has the power skills necessary to be successful in school and career. We know that when students are empowered they dream, and when they dream they begin to realize an exciting new future for themselves and our community.
Edward L. Daughtrey, Principal
Kelly Weaver, SIC Chair
