Springfield Elementary is helping all students develop the South Carolina Graduate’s World Class Knowledge and Skills by providing a caring and safe environment where staff, students, families, and community engage in the process of teaching and learning together in an effort to continually promote academic, social, and emotional growth. Our staff strives to teach the whole child. Our students and staff carry out and practice our school values by choosing to: do our best, be responsible, and take care of each other.
Our school's top initiatives incorporate the four C’s of Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity. This starts with our staff utilizing Professional Learning Communities (PLC) to work and learn together in grade level and vertical teams for Literacy, Math, STEAM, Diversity, and school culture. These teams consistently collaborate effectively to determine essential standards, plan effective and engaging lessons, create and analyze common assessment data, and determine plans of action to help students who need remediation as well as enrichment. Our PLC’s help our staff and students effectively promote the following school initiatives. Through our PLC's, our teachers take a deep dive into data and respond to the 4 essential questions of the PLC process. They are:
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What do we want all students to know and be able to do?
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How will we know if they learn it?
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How will we respond when some students do not learn?
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How will we extend learning for students who are already proficient?
Our school continues to implement our STEAM initiative from our prior partnership with Discovery Education. Springfield Elementary has a STEAM Committee, including our Lead Teacher, who attends monthly committee meetings to creatively brainstorm new ideas to bring back to our school. The STEAM Committee shares these ideas with our staff through professional development opportunities throughout the year. This process has inspired our teachers to embed more STEAM activities which are heavily focused on the four C’s within their lessons for our students.
In addition to our STEAM initiative and a focus on literacy and math, a few of our goals include implementing the workshop framework in all classes and utilizing resources to teach fluency, phonics and phonemic awareness in classrooms. Our math and reading coaches offer coaching cycles for teaching to provide units of inquiry for their students. They also do pop-up professional development sessions for staff to help in these specific areas.
The Literacy and Math instruction at Springfield Elementary consistently emphasizes the four C’s for our students. We utilized the HMH curriculum in ELA with a strong focus on phonics and phonemic awareness through knowledge gained in LETRS training. Guided math is the foundation for our math instruction, which has been helped greatly by the addition of a math coach. These methods of instruction allow for differentiation. This provides opportunities for our students to think critically, practice communication, use collaboration skills with partner/group activities, and to be creative on a routine basis in their writing and math problem solving. Rigorous standards and instruction in math and language arts help to prepare students for college and career readiness.
Our school continues to collaborate with the community by participating in community service projects. Springfield participated in the Angel Tree Project, where we worked to provide food, clothing, and toys to families in need. Through our partnership with LifePointe Church, Springfield Elementary is rebuilding the Leadership Enhancement and Development (LEAD) Program. This program partners students with community members who act as mentors in an effort to develop each student’s leadership potential. Springfield also continued its seventh year of its partnership with Winthrop University, as well as other universities, by hosting several aspiring teachers during their internships.
We continue to communicate and collaborate with stakeholders through various methods and events. We hosted Colt Carnival Night with our PTA, as well as other family-centered events. We strive to keep our families informed of school events and updates through our monthly newsletter, “Hoofbeat News”, our school website, and our Facebook account.
With the help of our Parent-Teacher Association, School Improvement Council, parents, community partnerships, staff, and all other stakeholders, we will continue to provide a caring and safe environment for our students to ensure they continue to grow academically, socially, and emotionally.
Adam Fantone – Principal
Courtney Clanton – School Improvement Council Chair
