J.D. Lever Elementary is a community centered, family-friendly school with a focus on helping all students develop world class skills and life and career characteristics as outlined in the Profile of a South Carolina Graduate. Our mission is to build the foundation for our students to reach their full potential by providing rigorous, personalized learning opportunities. We are committed to delivering highly effective instruction through nurturing and service driven professionals who support the academic, social and physical development of each student. During the 2018-19 school year, we focused on improving collaboration and communication specifically to increase student achievement.
Within the school, we have initiated specific protocols to ensure that we are helping students acquire the skills needed to perform in the 21st century. We have weekly professional learning community meetings where teachers and administrators constantly monitor and discuss the next steps forward for groups or individual students. Academic rigor and critical thinking are highlights during these discussions and how to improve student learning while also focusing on collaboration with other stakeholder and communicating ways we all can work to help students grow.
J.D. Lever Elementary seeks to build and strengthen relationships with students and families while developing mutually beneficial collaborations within our community. A major goal was to improve the communication between school and home. We accomplished this goal by increasing our output through multiple avenues such as newsletters, automated phone calls, our website, twitter, and the most utilized, Facebook. The communication improvements have set the stage for increased parent involvement with student activities and their knowledge of curriculum initiatives. This initiative has also brought more parents in for nights to help with literacy, bullying, and feedback surveys to not only help improve their understanding of these items, but also to guide us into what next steps we need to take as a school.Their support has helped boost our student achievement by 14% on local assessment measures. We hope to continue to see progress in this area!
Our school maintains a very active School Improvement Council and Parent/Teacher Organization, who help guide and provide feedback on school and district initiatives. These groups have worked to improve student achievement by examining the safety of the school environment and addressing any areas of concern. We also continue to partner with USC-Aiken as an onsite Professional Development School, which provides extra assistance for our students and unique teaching experiences for “future teachers.” Our newest partner, Avara Pharmaceuticals, has donated over 100 laptops and 40 desktop computers to our students. The collaboration of their work with ours has been a win-win for both parties.
Throughout the year, we encourage parent and community involvement by sponsoring activities such as Open House, Literacy Week and night, Grandparents Week, Arts Fest and Day of Caring. Our school volunteer program, sponsored through the guidance department, seeks parent and community volunteers to assist throughout the school and mentor in classrooms.
We strive to provide an excellent education for all of our students in an innovative and nurturing environment. We are proud of our programs and attribute our success to working cooperatively with students, parents and the community.
Michael Truitt, Principal
Valerie Zielinski, SIC Chair
