White Knoll Middle School helps all students develop the World-Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by providing a challenging academic program delivered by competent and caring professionals in an engaging classroom environment that emphasizes life and career characteristics. In Lexington District One and at WKMS, our vision is to “Empower EACH child to design the future.” To see that vision become reality, we focus on two key priorities. First: all students must believe before they can achieve. We want all students to dream and set goals for their achievement. Second: we have worked hard on our students’ social-emotional development. We have done this through our advocacy time where we use iLead and Advancement Via Individual Determination philosophies to drive our daily advocacy time. Through their core classes, students learn about how to apply the lessons learned in iLead, organize their bookbags, take virtual college tours and study.
As an AVID school, students in all three grade levels are able to participate in an elective that focuses on challenging students to achieve at a higher level through developing goals, organization and dreaming of their future. This year we had two classes per grade level in the AVID elective with our schoolwide AVID implementation. Through the initiative, we hope to challenge more students in honor classes so that they leave WKMS with a successful plan for their future as they enter high school. Students in AVID elective classes will also be able to continue their AVID learning at White Knoll High School where they will continue to grow as leaders in their educational journey.
At the beginning of the year, our students participated in a program designed to identify students who were in distress socially and emotionally. These students were then provided appropriate services based on their needs and permission from their parents.
As a school, we celebrated various heritages throughout the year and focused on building skills such as gratitude, kindness, giving back, perspective-taking, standing up to bullying/the bystander effect and respecting differences. Our school worked hard in helping students and parents connect to the various mental health organizations that assist students through difficult issues. To celebrate the many different things that students and teachers were doing, we developed a recognition process that allows teachers and students to write positive referrals, then have them noticed on our social media and during lunch times. This year we celebrated more than 1,500 positive referrals from students and teachers. We are very proud of their individual achievements.
In the classroom, we focused on our workshop model that enables students and teachers to focus on individual needs. Teachers present a short lesson, then take time to work in small groups to assist all students as they work on mastering state standards. The students showed growth in math and ELA through our school STAR testing program.
Finally, WKMS is committed to creating a world-class education through a challenging curriculum in the core classes with access to Spanish, Latin and Chinese classes, coding courses through Project Lead The Way, and a plethora of art classes. The ultimate goal for every child at WKMS is to have a career dream and plan to accomplish it in high school and beyond. For we truly believe: “If you believe, you can achieve.”
Don Hardie, Principal
David Ford, SIC Chair
