Buena Vista Elementary School offers a challenging, progressive, character-building curriculum and environment that enables students to become self-directed learners, outstanding citizens, and active participants in a culture of collaboration. Our students become creative problem solvers and independent thinkers who are prepared for the challenges of the 21st Century. We are a very culturally diverse school with a student body representing over 35 different countries and cultures along with a diversified faculty and staff. Our academic goals remain the same each year as we continue to strive for excellence in all areas. As in 2023 - 2024 we received the Palmetto Gold High Performance recognition. Our staff strives to enable all students to master the South Carolina State Standards in English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. The results of our most recent state assessments rank our school as one of the district's and state's top elementary schools in ELA and Math. We take great pride in being an academic leader, in fact over 50% of our staff has received Gifted Certification or have taken the courses necessary for the certification.
Our goals for the SC Ready State Assessments in grades 3-5 call for the percentage of students Meeting/Exceeding expectations on math will increase from 78% to 81% in both Math and ELA. Our faculty and staff have received intense professional development in utilizing discourse and increasing engagement over the last two years with tremendous results. We continue to build our capacity as a PLC school.
We have tremendous strength in the area of technology. Buena Vista was one of the first ten schools to be a part of the Digital Learning Community and we continue to blaze this trail. Each of the last three years we have held a school-wide Tech Day where our very own teachers and students have offered to share one of their technology strengths with our staff, visiting teachers from other schools and districts. In fact, over 75% of our staff have been presenters at the school, district and/or National level.
As a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence, a Palmetto Gold recipient with a rating "Gold", our staff continues to learn, share, and explore new strategies. We have between 3-5 teachers presenting Nationally at different conferences including the National Blue Ribbon Schools Conference.
As we focus on or World Class Skills one of our highlights is that every student at Buena Vista has utilized our 3D printers and its software to produce their own creative design with great success. We have established our first Entrepreneurship program with our Multi-Categorical class and a new laser printer with great success. Their business raised over $1,000.00 in two days with the funds to be donated to a needy cause. Our STEAM Lab continues to break the mold with creative projects utilizing our technology resources.
Our Buena Vista Community has fully embraced The Leader In Me program as we are all developing our individual strengths and collaborating in the Eight Habits, with number eight, developing our voice. It is critically important that all members of our community develop their own voice, become better listeners and be seen and heard.
