Richmond Drive Elementary is helping all students develop World Class Skills as a part of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by embracing our district motto of “One Team, One Mission, One Rock Hill.” Together our staff strives to address the needs of each individual child in order to prepare them for thinking critically and creatively.
Richmond Drive Elementary has been a part of Rock Hill Schools for over 70 years. It is located near Winthrop University and is a true neighborhood school surrounded by our families and community. During our years of educating children, Richmond Drive has had a variety of cultures and socio-economic backgrounds attending the school since integration.
As stated in our vision, at our school “we believe empowering and inspiring each other to take risks to achieve our highest potential” as our students develop the characteristics of the South Carolina Graduate and staff grows as professionals. We believe all students can learn at high levels if engaged and given choice and ownership. We challenge our students by using real world problems in math and reading. We incorporate MAP testing three times a year in the area of math and reading along with Fountas and Pinnell reading assessment twice a year which allows teachers to gain knowledge of students needs as they prepare throughout the year.
Communication with our families and other stakeholders in our school’s progress, events and activities is an extremely vital part of who we are. To keep all parents and families abreast of news we communicate in a variety of means: meet the teacher / open house night, individual family conferences, weekly communication folders and weekly newsletters. We discovered in today’s electronic age, sending communication home in a variety of ways is most beneficial. Texts and emails with links to our newsletters is our greatest means of communication as shown in our SIC communication survey.
Our SIC plays an integral part in our school’s progress. During this year’s monthly meetings, SIC discussed lighting safety concerns, opened communication between virtual students and face to face students and families, and created a survey pertaining to our school communication goal for all stakeholders to share information.
Although Covid-19 did hinder some of our typical PTO activities, PTO was able to support those within our school and reached out to the community beyond our school. PTO sponsored the sale of community coupon books for PBIS funding. PTO also sponsored our spring field day, teacher appreciation days throughout the year, and sunglass shades day just to name a few.
Richmond Drive Elementary partnered with Winthrop University, several local churches and businesses. These organizations provided extra support in-person, virtually and through donations due to Covid-19 no permitting visitors in the building. Being a host to Winthrop University interns has given us the opportunity to give back to our community.
At Richmond Drive Elementary we worked with students to provide many opportunities for building life characteristics through our PBIS (positive behavior intervention supports) platform. We are growing as listeners and communicators everyday as we focus on positive behavior. Using our Richmond Drive tiger mascot, we used the acronym TIGER for our character traits to help students grow with life skills. Younger students had a specific goal to achieve each nine weeks by showing an understanding of the following life skills: Tolerance, Inclusion, Generosity, Excellence, and Respect, while our older students earned tiger stripes to spend in the PBIS store. Students were recognized with TIGER stripes for showing an understanding of the traits.
Richmond Drive Elementary will continue to collaborate with all stakeholders as we strive for empowering and inspiring each other to take risks to achieve our highest potential as our students become college and career ready.
