In all areas – arts, academics, and athletics – McBee High School has worked to excel and achieve the best possible results and help all students to develop both world class skills and life and career characteristics consistent with those noted in the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. We have sought to do this while providing a safe, caring, and academically challenging learning environment for all of our students, as well as the community. This meets the vision we promote, “to prepare students to meet goals for future education and employment, to become contributing members of their diverse communities, and to develop lifelong habits of learning and self-discipline.” We demonstrate this vision by challenging our students with best practices to reach their full potential and by the continuous professional development of our teachers. Excellence is always our goal.
MHS students and teachers have worked extremely hard to teach and master standards and participate in productive learning and growth experiences. Our seniors continue to be competitive with expected graduates from other schools, as evidenced by the large number of scholarships and recognitions they have received. Such recognitions are not unique to our senior class, but rather are noticed through all of the 7-12 classifications. Ancillary organizations, such as FFA and FBLA, further use academics as the base for their programs and achieve similar successes in state and national competitions. In short, our academic programs are extremely competitive with other schools, and in many ways exceed them.
The music department continues to be a perfect example of striving for excellence. The “Spirit” marching band continues to grow into one of the finest band programs in the area, competitively participating and striving to receive the Outstanding Performance Award (the highest award given to band programs in the state of South Carolina). Other ensembles set goals for similar accolades, with many students being named to honors ensembles in both the region and the state. Coupled with successes in the art program, which routinely produce several contest winners in county and regional competitions, it is fair to say that the arts programs are a great benefit to our school. To stress this, for the third year MHS led out in hosting the all-county arts festival, proudly welcoming students and teachers from across our school district who share our love and commitment to the arts.
Lastly, our athletic programs also have achieved great success. Several programs had successful seasons which included qualifying for post-season play and advanced therein. Most notably, the baseball team won the state championship for the 1A classification. For sure, both individually and collectively, our student-athletes have demonstrated hard work, determination, and sportsmanship (the most important of these elements) as they represented our school on the athletic fields and courts, making this a very successful outgrowth of our classroom experience.
Unquestionably, McBee High is one of the finest schools in Chesterfield County, in the Pee Dee region, and in the state of South Carolina. Most assuredly, the accomplishments mentioned above are indicative of dedicated teachers and coaches reaching out to touch the lives of young people. It is further indicative of students and parents joining teachers in this effort as the most important component of success.