Gold Hill Middle School is passionate about helping all students develop the World Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by providing an education that centers on academic, social, and emotional growth. We demonstrate this vision by providing learners with a rigorous education where all students are valued and where the faculty exhibits academic excellence through high expectations, collaboration, and engagement. We maintain and strengthen our culture of high expectations with our dedication to the Fort Mill School District's STEAM initiative and implementation of the 5-C’s: Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, and Caring into our daily lives.
Our students, staff, and families learned about kindness, treating everyone with respect, and accepting everyone regardless of their differences through our One Book, One School initiative by reading Sharon Draper’s, Out of my Mind. Our students created public service announcements on kindness and shared them with our community through our newsletter and social media page. In addition, our students, staff, and families raised over $12,000 for Special Olympics via the Polar Plunge this year making us the top fundraising school in the entire state! We even had a team of administrators, teachers, and STUDENTS take the plunge together in one of our local swimming pools this past March.
We believe in establishing a culture of family throughout our school. We ensure our incoming 6th graders feel a part of our Bulldog Family through our WEB (Where Everybody Belongs) Program. This year was special in that many of the activities had to be done virtually. We hosted our first virtual WEB Day and met our rising 6th graders before the school year even started. 8th grade WEB leaders were trained virtually, and then were able to welcome our newest Bulldogs on the screen! As the year progressed, our students were able to meet (socially-distanced) and truly embody the philosophies of “Where Everybody Belongs”.
A global pandemic brought with it many challenges, but we were able to remain “Bulldog Strong'' academically, athletically, artistically, and philanthropically. Academically, our students scored well on the SC Ready and STAR assessments and over 60% of our students maintained A’s and B’s in ALL courses. Our Academic Team came in 2nd in the region, 2nd in the state, and 15th in the nation. Our 7th graders honed their narrative essay writing skills through a documentary filmmaking competition, and ten students defended their titles in the You Be The Chemist Challenge. We were also able to virtually host four Holocaust survivors who shared their stories with our 7th grade students and allowed us to be a part of a documentary film on the SS St. Louis. Our 7th grade girls volleyball team won the conference championship! The GHMS baseball team won the conference championship as well! For the first time ever, our girls’ track team won the conference championship! All of our athletic teams fought hard and represented our school extremely well. Our Related Arts Department hosted another successful Festival of the Arts with performances from our band and chorus along with an art showcase. However, this year we had to find new ways to celebrate our students’ skills and talents. We held our Festival of the Arts in an outside amphitheater within our community. Our GHMS Bulldog Singers performed Voices Lifted: A Celebratory Contribution to Black History Month and our Theater Department performed and filmed Newsies. Several band students qualified for Region and All State Band. This year brought the return of the Gold Hill Middle School Dance Team. They performed at pep rallies, football games, and basketball games. In addition, our Beta Club was awarded the title of National Beta School of Distinction.
We are proud of the kindness our students and staff have shown to others during an especially critical time in our lives. Our Beta Club students spent time each week reading to Kindergarteners at the elementary school next door, even if it was through a computer screen. Our special settings classes successfully ran a Bitty & Beau’s Coffee Cart for the school and our QuaranTEAM (facilitated by Beta Club) delivered care packages for students that were home due to Covid or quarantine. In addition, we were able to raise over $3,800 to support Breast Cancer Awareness, our PTA provided over $21,000 in support for school initiatives in math, science, social studies, literacy, and chorus, and we were awarded over $2500 in grant money to enhance learning in classrooms. One grant even allowed us to build an Outdoor Sensory Garden filled with sensory experiences for our special settings students.
Gold Hill Middle School continues to believe in a safe, nurturing, and positive learning environment. We hold our students to high expectations academically and behaviorally while also teaching them how to be good citizens, find success, and make the world a better place. We look forward to the challenges ahead and rising to the occasion because we are Bulldog Strong!
Aaron Duda, School Improvement Council Chairperson
Richard Eppes, Principal
