The 2023-2024 school year began with a move from a traditional school calendar to a modified year-round school calendar. This calendar provided opportunities for additional breaks that have proven to be beneficial for both students and teachers. Latta High School continued to support a one-to-one initiative with all students being issued Chromebooks, which allowed instruction to continue to take place when student absences were necessary.
Latta High School is accredited through Cognia and during our Cognia evaluation in 2022-2023, we were able to determine the need to focus on differentiated instruction for our staff development this year. We have utilized Monday teacher meetings and in-service days to provide staff development opportunities related to differentiated instruction for our faculty. Teachers also continued to have opportunities to develop their technology skills through staff development conducted by our Teacher Leaders. This enabled our faculty to continue to improve their technology skills to be better prepared to serve our students.
During the 2023-2024 school year, Latta High School promoted World Class Knowledge by offering rigorous courses in the International Baccalaureate Programme. We have forty-eight juniors and seniors taking courses in this program and two are working for the International Baccalaureate Diploma. Our goal is to increase the number participating in this program in the next few years. Our Project Lead the Way Engineering program has continued to grow, and we have eight students completing all four courses in the pathway this year. Our agriculture program is also gaining numbers, and we will have four agriculture completers this year. We certainly want to continue to grow both of these programs.
Our extracurricular activities have been well-supported during the 2023-2024 school year. Our agriculture team once again hosted a regional competition for high schools from across our area. Our agriculture students work diligently to make our greenhouse a huge success. People throughout the community purchase various types of plants from our greenhouse, and the proceeds help fund our agriculture program. Our Steam Punks Robotics Team participated at the state level again this year, and they received the Innovation Award at the state competition. Our Academic Challenge Team had an undefeated regular season and ended up second in the Region. Our Varsity Football Team, Varsity Volleyball Team, and both varsity basketball teams were in the playoffs this year. Our Cross Country Team also qualified to participate in the state competition. Our Varsity Softball, Varsity Baseball, Track Team, and Golf Team are working hard, and we are looking for positive outcomes for all of them this spring season.
Our continued implementation of Inquiry-Based instruction also led to the development of World Class Skills, to include critical thinking, problem solving, and innovation. Students were once again able to work in groups to collaborate on activities and projects in the classroom. Teachers continued to utilize Google Classroom for assignments, which supports our technology initiative.
We continued to stress the development of Life and Career Characteristics through students participating in Individual Graduation Plan Conferences in order to plan for their chosen careers. All seniors were able to participate in our College Application Day, which provided assistance with the college application process. All participating seniors completed at least one college application and many completed several applications during the event. We anticipate a large percentage of the senior class will enroll in postsecondary education in order to achieve their goals.
We continued to focus on our Arts programs. We had two Drama performances this year and two Dance performances. Band participated in several marching contests this fall and qualified to participate in the State Marching Competition. We also had a winter band concert and a spring concert. We had a student make Region Band and several participated in Solo and Ensemble. Our Art students continued to display art work at various functions at school and in the community.
We are proud of our students’ achievements and the efforts of our staff to exceed the challenges of a rigorous and relevant education to meet the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. We believe with students, teachers, staff, School Improvement Council members, community members, and parents working collaboratively, we will continue to strive for excellence.
Nanette W. Carmichael, Principal
