James B. Edwards Elementary (JBE), The School of Global Leadership, helps students develop world-class skills and life/career characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by providing authentic, challenging, creative experiences in a supportive and engaging environment. During the 2020-2021 school year, JBE teachers, staff, families, and students were champions when faced with the challenges of COVID-19.
To begin with, all teachers taught remotely at some point in the year and slowly phased back to in-person instruction as more students returned to the physical classroom. To limit COVID-19 cross contamination, all special area, intervention, and special education teachers had to adjust to only pushing into the classroom to instruct students, and teacher assistants had more instructional responsibilities than ever before. When JBE first brought students back for in-person instruction, many families had to be flexible and remain remote due to safe capacity restrictions. Students had to adapt to learning through plexiglass, social distancing, and masks and the majority had to switch homeroom teachers at least once during the school year. Despite the unprecedented circumstances of this year, our students grew and flourished like never before!
Every stakeholder was determined to think creatively and work hard to ensure students continued to grow through the pandemic. All teachers attended OGAP (Ongoing Assessment Project) training and learned and implemented the Zearn math curriculum which met the needs of both remote and in-person students. Primary teachers attended REAP’s (Reading Is Essential For All People) Science of Reading professional development with a focus on phonemic awareness. JBE’s student strategies included Individuals and small groups being pulled for intervention/tutoring before and during school by student teachers, special area teachers, long-term building substitutes, the secretary, and even the School Resource Officer. Everyone was trained to implement interventions that were targeted to meet specific students’ needs. Some student groups followed a test prep curriculum, while other students received sight word intervention, phonemic awareness intervention, or guided practice reading decodable texts.
We are proud that during this unusual year, JBE students continued to attend French 2-3 times weekly, a frequency required to actually learn a second language and not just be exposed to a culture. This investment of time will yield powerful dividends. We know that learning a second language increases students’ cognitive ability which will increase success in all academic areas. We continue to strive for our goal to have students who have had French three times/week performing at a Novice-Mid to Intermediate-Low level based on the South Carolina College- and Career-Ready Standards for World Language Proficiency (2019) by the end of 5th Grade. This would mean that the graduating JBE student will be able to communicate in spontaneous spoken or written conversation using a variety of practiced or memorized words, phrases, simple sentences, and questions. The student will be able to present information on both very familiar and everyday topics through spoken or written language.
JBE continued to implement the 2nd Step curriculum school-wide, which, along with JBE’s PBIS and Leadership Principles created a cohesive social, emotional learning program providing all students with direct instruction in self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness, and relationship skills. These skills, which are developed and deepened year after year improve students’ ability to effectively engage in collaborative, authentic experiences.
In response to COVID-19 guidelines not allowing us to build comradery through our monthly Community Circle, we implemented the JBE House System and amped up the excitement, collaboration, and just a little competition in our community. Students worked hard to earn points for their House by displaying leadership principles and by completing adaptive digital content (Zearn, Dreambox, Lexia, etc). A student from each homeroom was selected and honored as the Leader of the Month. Students with perfect attendance (other than quarantine) were honored and rewarded and earned points for their House. The first Wednesday of each month was “College Wear Wednesday” helping all students visualize the possibility of attending college while earning points for their House. School-wide JBE House Zooms allowed us to keep building our beautiful community despite the pandemic.
Even during a global pandemic, JBE continued to provide authentic learning experiences to develop global leaders with strong character ready to serve their communities!
Robin Fountain, Principal
Karah Viola, SIC Chair
