At Anderson Mill Elementary, our staff prepares students to develop characteristics and skills aligned with the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. Our school's mission is to develop competent and confident lifelong learners by creating a safe, positive, and innovative environment where the staff, parents, and community work together to provide a curriculum that recognizes individual differences and allows for students to reach their maximum potential. It is the intent of the faculty and staff to lead students toward being disciplined, productive, informed, and fulfilled individuals. To achieve these ideals, mutual respect and understanding must be present in the learning process on the part of all participants: faculty and staff, students, families, and the community.
Our teachers continuously participate in yearlong professional development sessions to increase their knowledge of literacy, phonics, math and technology. The teachers continue to implement project- based learning into their practices for increasing student engagement, fostering critical thinking, and providing inquiry based experiences. Our school also continues to offer a variety of individualized learning pathways in ELA and math. Our students and teachers focus on personalized pathways for individual support in reading and math using the iReady program as well as individual tierd support. The implementation of these programs, in conjunction with a rigorous curriculum and an individualized approach to instruction, have increased student achievement. By creating a more individualized approach to teaching and learning, we are working to meet the needs of learners from every subgroup in our diverse student population.
At Anderson Mill Elementary, we are “On the PROWL towards Excellence," continuously embracing our challenges and celebrating our successes. Our dedicated teaching staff embodies an attitude that focuses on continuous improvement and keeping students at the center of all instructional and policy decisions. Because of this attitude and our dedication to our mission and vision, we have seen high levels of student achievement. Our school earned a rating of 'Excellent' on the SC State Report Card for the 2022-2023 school year. During the 2023-2024 school year, our third, fourth and fifth grade students scored higher than the state and district average in ELA and Math on the SC Ready assessment. 59.3% of our students scored ‘meets or exceeds’ in ELA and 53.7% scored ‘meets or exceeds’ in math. The data outlines that our students grew compared to their previous SC READY assessment. Our fourth grade students maintained a higher state and district score of ‘meets and exceeds’ this past year with a percentage of 49%.
The results of these assessments are being used to help drive our instructional practices toward a more rigorous approach to curriculum and assessments. The incorporation of assessment items that require a greater depth of knowledge have been added to our formative and summative assessment tools. Our students are leading their own academic conferences with parents to share their growth towards their own individual academic goals. Teachers are adding more project-based learning experiences that allow students to engage in critical thinking and creative problem solving. Our professional development has been centered on taking a closer look at the whole child, increasing rigor in the classroom, and initiating engaging, hands-on learning experiences and enhancing the teaching of phonics. In addition, our full-time literacy coach works with teachers, our guidance counselors, our reading interventionists, and our administrative team in professional learning communities to refine instructional strategies and analyze student data in reading as well as in their social/emotional needs. Anderson Mill Elementary is committed to providing a high quality educational experience for students of diverse backgrounds, talents, and interests.
In addition to academics, our school continues to focus on service learning projects to instill a sense of purpose and civic responsibility. Our children have the opportunity to "give back" as we embrace several community outreach projects that included: Kids for Lidz, canned food drive for our D6 community, Angel Tree, donations for the Spartanburg Humane Society, and created cards of encouragement for patients at Agape Children’s Hospice. Along with service learning projects, our school staff and community rallied together to support several of our families in need and provided a Thanksgiving meal for each of our amazing custodians in November.
Our school continues to prioritize our students’ social and emotional health. Our counselors continue to provide classroom social-emotional (SEL) lessons and small group SEL lessons for students who need additional support. School counselors teach monthly SEL lessons in grades one through five and weekly lessons to students in kindergarten. The lessons are designed around several key character traits: positive mental attitude, compassion, perseverance, respect, cooperation, initiative, and integrity. These character traits are also connected to our school discipline policy and students are taught to reflect on their infractions through the lens of our seven character traits. Incentives for good character such as our Terrific Kid program, Good School Citizen Award, and Andy’s Tyger Heart Award (Anti-Bully Prevention) reinforce positive behavior and recognize students who display good character.
At Anderson Mill Elementary, we have tremendous support from our parents and the community. Our Anderson Mill PTO meets monthly to organize and plan events for our students and staff. Through their hard work and fundraising efforts, the school has benefited from new playground equipment, funded free events for students, provided ink for the school's color copier, provided Angel Tree gifts for families, and held a phenomenal Read A Thon event that provided a “Day of Awesome” for each child. We are so thankful for the hard work of each PTO member!
We have a wonderful group of parents and community members who serve on our School Improvement Council (SIC). This group of dedicated individuals meet on a monthly basis to discuss the direction of our school improvement plan. Through parent surveys and teacher forums, the SIC works to determine the needs of our stakeholders and implement strategies and action steps to meet those needs. This year, our SIC collaborated with our stakeholders and our faculty as we evaluated our school’s mission and vision. Through this process, we were able to evaluate our school’s beliefs and best practices as we strive to continuously improve.
Our school Safety Committee met biweekly to assess our safety efforts and supervision. We added an armed security guard to our campus with a metal detector for all guests that enter in our building. Because of our parent and faculty input, we were able to improve upon our safety protocols. We added a gate to the back of our school entrance that eliminates deliveries entering the campus during the school day. Our school received new walkie talkies and a new phone system. Thanks to our SIC, PTO and parents, our school is able to collaborate to continuously improve in all facets of education.
Committed to Excellence,
Beth Foster, Principal and Chris Smith, SIC Chairperson
