Silver Bluff High School has developed a comprehensive instructional program to ensure that all students graduate college and/or career ready. We strive to ensure that our students reflect the world-class knowledge and skills represented within the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. Having an active College and Career Readiness Center has supported our efforts in connecting students with college admissions and business representatives as well as military recruiters. We are excited about this space and how it will continue to grow and support our students and stakeholders.
Throughout the 2021-2022 school year, we continued to focus on the social and emotional needs of our students and stakeholders and regained our instructional focus. We plan to continue, for the 2022-2023 school year, our school-wide instructional focus. Our focus will be specifically on the domains within the 4.0 rubric.
Aiken County Public Schools announced its district-wide 1:1 technology initiative two years ago, which placed technology devices in the hands of all teachers and students at Silver Bluff High School. This initiative has enhanced and supported 21st century learning in our classrooms. We will continue providing professional development on technology to ensure our teachers are equipped with the resources and tools needed to maximize student learning.
We strive to provide ongoing opportunities for our students to explore and enhance their 21st century skills. For the 2021-2022 school year, we transitioned from an engineering curriculum to a cyber security curriculum. With this transition, we hope to see an increase in pathway completers.
Critical thinking and problem-solving skills are also developed in our various technology classes, which includes our newly designed focus on information technology and the cyber industry. With a first-of-its-kind partnership with neighboring Fort Gordon and the US Army Cyber Command, we are working to create opportunities for our students that enable them to make technology connections to the world of cyber security and put these skills to use as part of the Cyber Patriot competition program. As we further develop partnerships with the US Department of Energy, Aiken Technical College and the community, we are able to begin the process of ensuring students have a path to industry certification and further education.
Our school’s connection to the arts industry and coursework helps us provide students with further opportunities to express their creativity by collaborating with other students to create works of art. Band concerts and a Night of the Arts showcase allows students to work together to showcase the skills they’ve learned in the academy. This intentional focus has allowed us to increase the number of students enrolled in fine arts courses. For the 2022-2023 school year, we will expand music opportunities for our students by adding an additional teacher.
We are excited about continuing to increase our instructional focus for the 2022-2023 school year and look forward to the development and full implementation of its key components. Our learning community believes this will push us forward and allow us to continue to provide our graduates with the world-class skills needed to graduate college and/or career ready as they transition to post-secondary success.
