LES Report Card Narrative
Lexington Elementary School is helping all students develop the World Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by creating conditions for students, staff, and families to thrive every day. This year we continued our unwavering commitment to building positive relationships between students, staff and families and increasing engagement of our families. We implemented a number of school-wide expectations and routines this year that allowed for students to experience consistency throughout the building and during arrival, dismissal, lunch, recess, and class time. We also recognized students monthly during Wildcat Rallies for exemplifying citizenship and character traits outlined in our Wildcat Profile: Knowledgeable, A Creative Thinker and Problem Solver, An Independent Learner, A Communicator, A Collaborator, Future-ready Literate, Personally and Socially Responsible, Kind, and Resilient.
As a Title I school, Lexington Elementary School continued to support our school work plan goals by utilizing a full time math coach and additional interventionists for our students. We also have a part-time family liaison provided through Title I funds that is able to support families with resources as needs arise and support our school with family engagement opportunities. LES worked in collaboration with our PTA, SIC, and Title I family liaison to provide opportunities including a Family Bingo Night, Winter Fine Arts Night, Wildcat Workshop, Spring Fine Arts Night, Veterans Day event, and International Parade. In addition, the PTA sponsored teacher appreciation events throughout the year and during Teacher Appreciation Week, duty-free lunch, financial support for field trips at all grade levels, and a school dance and celebration for our fifth graders.
We have kept families and the community informed of the happenings at LES through newsletters, social media, the school website, our Title I Compact, our SIC Report to the Parents, and teacher-generated weekly newsletters to parents and family members. Our Wee Wildcats (4 year olds) were able to participate with a grown up in our Wee Wildcat session each week across a multi-week program. We were pleased to have excellent family attendance at all of our family engagement and extracurricular activities.
Teachers and students began each morning with a morning meeting and ended their day with a closing circle. These structures provide opportunities to build relationships and develop a focus for the day and the learning that will take place, all while creating the conditions for a safe learning environment where students feel comfortable taking risks. To maximize our instructional time with students we created a master schedule that allowed students to get additional support in subjects during times when new learning was not occurring in the classroom.
We utilize the workshop model as a structure for reading, writing, and math in all grade levels. This enables teachers to engage students in meaningful learning in whole groups, small groups, and independent work. Teachers use student data to drive the planning of instruction to meet student needs through differentiation. Our mission at Lexington Elementary School is to guide all students to learn, grow and excel. We teach using the SC state standards in English Language Arts, mathematics, science and social studies. Students also engage in fine arts (art, music, theatre), PE, and Spanish each week.
This year we were excited to focus on fine-tuning effective implementation of instructional practices to foster a learning environment that encouraged teachers and students to take academic risks in order to help us achieve goals. Teachers engaged in LETRS training and shifted practices during phonics, word study, reading and writing times, and we saw exponential growth in students’ reading scores, particularly in early grades. Our mathematics professional development centered around the use of manipulatives in math to ensure that students utilize models to enhance both their conceptual and procedural knowledge of mathematics. During professional learning throughout this year, teachers and staff reviewed a variety of data (i-Ready data, text level data, exit slips, and individual checklist/rubric data, etc.) to identify trends and needs for our students. This work allowed us to track student growth, and it also allowed us to identify instructional gaps that support teachers and staff. We are so thankful to our students, families, staff, and community partners for their support and for making it possible for us to have such a great year at Lexington Elementary School.
Lori Meyers, Principal
Ron Williams, SIC Chair
