Springfield Middle School is helping all students develop the World Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by maintaining and achieving high academic standards, creating a school culture that supports and challenges our students, and by providing the foundational skills for student success. Small group instruction, common formative assessments, implementing effective PLCs and literacy have been a centerpiece of our staff development. The strategies within small group instruction helps to promote the four C’s. Our teachers are constantly searching for ways to help our students communicate, collaborate, think critically, and be creative. This year we focused on how to use assessment and feedback on assessments to move learning forward. When students receive targeted feedback, they are able to see and understand their mistakes and learn from those experiences. The goal of assessment is to give data to teachers and then for teachers to use that data to help plan their next steps to help students increase their level of understanding.
Springfield Middle continues to follow the guidelines Making Middle Grades Work and the Schools to Watch criteria to assess how well all staff are implementing and supporting the daily needs of middle school students. Students are given a variety of opportunities throughout the day to receive extra help or enrichment opportunities and to use their gifts and talents through Flex time and club time. The Band program this year received the highest honor in South Carolina by receiving the SCBDA Outstanding Performance Award for all of their accomplishments throughout the year. The athletic program, band program, and other school activities give our students and staff the opportunity to communicate, collaborate, think critically, and to be creative. There are also many service opportunities through our Beta Club, Student Council, and other organizations, which also promote the four C’s.
Springfield Middle School has begun a more targeted approach to addressing the emotional and social needs of the students. This year we implemented the Ci3T model to address the three tiers of Academic Learning, behavior supports, and Social Emotional Learning. We focused primarily on our Tier 1 plan with behaviors and SEL. Positive Reinforcements through a ticket system was implemented along with focusing weekly on character traits through an online Character Education program. The staff’s goal is for students to become well-rounded individuals ready to face the society in which we hope they will contribute to. This goal requires students to be socially and emotionally ready as well as academically prepared. Springfield staff has embraced an “All Students” mentality with collective responsibility. Therefore, the whole staff has to be prepared to meet all of these needs of the students.
At Springfield Middle School, the staff believes that in order to meet all the needs of our students, there must be input from parents and the community as well. During our School Improvement meetings, the members focused on feedback from parents from last year’s surveys to determine what needs to be done to help parents engage more with their child in all areas of their education and to increase communication with parents that they can easily receive. We launched a Link Tree account that has links to all the information parents will need and also links to a variety of social media platforms. We learned that parents use a variety of social media platforms, and we want to make sure we are reaching them through as many ways as possible. Parents want to hear more from teachers about their child’s achievements or areas in which their child can improve. Many parents expressed the desire to help but weren't sure exactly how to do so. This year one of our ML teachers hosted another round of a FOCUS class for our Hispanic families. This class consists of seven weeks of education for the parents on how school works in the United States and how they can be more involved with their child's education. We had about eight parents graduate from the FOCUS class. The goal is to help parents from a variety of backgrounds feel comfortable coming to school and communicating with the school about their child.
In closing, we want our students to be prepared for their futures. College and career readiness is a collective effort of the K-12 years. We strive to prepare and encourage students to become well-rounded individuals ready to accept their roles in an ever-changing society. Our mission statement is “The mission of Springfield Middle School is to cultivate meaningful relationships, embrace diversity, and pursue academic excellence and equity for all students.”
Christy Matkovich, Principal
