Oakwood-Windsor Elementary is a Title I school in a rural section of Aiken County that borders Barnwell County. We serve a diverse population of approximately 460 students in 4k through 5th grade. The nurturing faculty and staff at Oakwood-Windsor is committed to our mission of building relationships and meet the needs of our entire Oakwood-Windsor community to ensure continuous academic, social, and emotional growth to become the best version of ourselves in order to positively impact each other and make the world a better place. We are helping all students develop the World Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by working in partnership with our entire community to educate the whole child.
At the beginning of the school year, our Leadership Team reviewed our current performance and reflected on the previous school year and the task before us. We crafted a school-wide goal for the school year of ensuring all of our students demonstrate growth. Our mission statement and school-wide goal drove all decisions and action steps during the 2022-2023 school year. Throughout the year, we monitored our progress towards our goal by frequently monitoring student performance on a variety of assessments including formative classroom assessments, Fastbridge and Measures of Academic Progress (MAP). During our monthly Data Team and Leadership Team meetings, we discuss our progress and problem solve solutions to help propel our journey forward.
Following our district’s instructional framework and curriculum, teachers at Oakwood-Windsor focus on providing instruction to each of our Wise Owls in a way that results in meaningful learning for the student. Our dedicated teachers work in weekly Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to discuss student progress and plan academically rigorous, standards-based instruction. When students are not making the progress we would expect, we put interventions in place at the classroom level and then move to pull out intervention, outside of the classroom, if needed. Our wonderful team of interventionists work very closely with our teachers to ensure the individual needs of our students are met. Additionally, we strive to ensure our students who demonstrate mastery of the instructional content are provided enrichment opportunities. In the upper elementary grades, our state identified as well as locally identified gifted and talented students are provided daily enrichment instruction.
At Oakwood-Windsor Elementary, we place an emphasis on the whole child. We fully believe in educating and constantly evaluating our students’ social, emotional, behavioral and academic needs. Over the course of the past four years, our teachers have received training to better assist them in assessing each student and meeting their individual needs. In previous years, our students had the opportunity to participate in activities that appeal to and enhance their unique talents. This past year, we were finally able to bring back two of our clubs that were previously not in place due to health and safety guidelines. For the duration of the 2022-2023 school year, our 3rd-5th grade students were able to participate in Guitar Club and Honors Chorus. These students were able to perform for their families and our community throughout the year. We were also able to partner with ArtsNow this year to provide our teachers with job embedded professional development and demonstration arts integration lessons with our Wise Owls in their classrooms. This is a partnership that is continuing into the 2023-2024 school year!
Oakwood-Windsor is truly a community school. This year, we have been ecstatic to lift many of our health and safety precautions previously in place and offer many opportunities for our community to engage with our students, staff and each other by having events within our building. For the first time in several years, we were able to welcome visitors and volunteers into our building! We have started a new program called “Reading Buddies” where high school students from our feeder school, South Aiken High School, and many of our community members come once per week to read with our Wise Owls and play a literacy game related to the phonics and phonemic awareness skills they have been working on within the classroom. We were also able to hold events such as our annual Back to School Bash, Math Night, Literacy Night, Aiken Center for the Arts Performance, Boo Bash, Veterans’ Day program, American Education Village Week, Family Dance Night and end of the year awards ceremonies with student performance with opportunities for our community get involved. We have numerous business and community partners who support our students and school in a variety of ways including giving of their time, donations and even monetary contributions. The generous support of our OWES community partners helps us to ensure the social, emotional, physical, and academic needs of our students are met.
We are growing increasingly excited about the 2023-2024 school year as we strive to prepare our students for college and career readiness. While we realize there are opportunities for improvement in all areas, we are very excited about the growth that we have seen! Our students know their job right now is to learn as much as they can, to add knowledge and skills to their brains and bodies as they can so that they grow up into adults who can take care of themselves, their future families and help make the world a better place! We believe that it is essential and most effective when the students, parents, faculty, staff and the entire community work together as partners in our Wise Owls’ educational journeys. Thank you for your ever-present support as we continue to develop future South Carolina graduates and world-class leaders!
Annette Rowe, SIC Chair
Davina Truitt, Principal
