Beaufort High School continues to focus on supporting all students in developing the world class skills, and life and career characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. Beaufort High School Programmatic Structure prepares students for college and career within a focused field of studies and major area of emphasis. Students enroll in core academic courses as well as career focused classes. Providing high quality staff development and educational resources for our students and staff is our priority.
We continue to offer curriculum designed to emphasize science and math for our students in the ninth through twelfth grade. We have expanded our course offerings to include career and technology pathways and course sequences to allow students to earn Career and Technology Education Completion Certificates in their area of choice. We offer ongoing faculty professional development and training focusing on supporting teacher development in technology to align with BCSD expectations. Every student is provided with a device to increase student engagement and learning through technology.
Beaufort High School continued our use of several successful initiatives in bridging the gap between student ability, student achievement, and test scores. We continued to move forward as a whole towards implementing the High Schools That Work 10 Key Practices. Beaufort High School further refined our Advisor-Advisee program to include NEST Time. The key elements of NEST Time are:
- Learner Centered- To increase student engagement in the learning process, fostering academic improvement and greater understanding of learning objectives and standards.
- Supportive- To provide a conducive learning environment where students feel comfortable asking questions and gaining teacher feedback that supports instruction and supplements student learning.
- Extra Help- To provide support helping students build necessary skills, complete key assignments, and receive additional monitoring and support. Extra help that is built into the regular school schedule is aligned to the High Schools That Work Ten Key Practices for providing extra help to students.
- Quality- To enhance the quality instruction through certified teacher expertise for continued learning that is built into the regular school day schedule.
The program Edgenuity is used to focus on learning gaps and to provide reinforcement in basic concepts. Continued use of USA Test Prep, SAT and ACT Prep assists teachers in establishing benchmark scores for students in each subject area, monitor student progress, and improve test performance. Incoming freshman who scored in the lower quartile of their middle school competency tests for English or Math received daily targeted instruction. This year, we provided an opportunity for credit recovery with an online facilitator to ensure students had daily opportunities to recover failed classes and stay on track to graduate on time. We also provided yearlong tutorials before and after school with teachers providing direct instruction.
In BCSD, we provide opportunities for students meeting the criteria to participate in dual enrollment courses at the community college level. This allows students to enter college with credits already earned. These credits are documented on student transcripts for high school and college credits.
The ultimate goal is for our students to be prepared with multiple language development, science, technology, engineering, math (STEM), the arts and social sciences along with the interpersonal skills, self-direction, and integrity to successfully enter the job workforce and/or meet the criteria to enroll in the educational field of student choice.
Charity B. Summers, Principal
