Lady’s Island Elementary is helping all students develop World Class Skills aligned to the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by embracing critical thinking, collaboration/teamwork, and creativity. We offer a curriculum rich with opportunities to form positive relationships with others and demonstrate leadership skills while immersed in the visual and performing arts.
For the 2022-2023 school year, we continued pushing the envelope on our school transformation journey with a sustained focus on leadership, culture, and academics. We continued building a culture of positive behavior support, understanding of the needs of students, and understanding emotional regulation to create a climate of trust and “family” in each classroom. As a result, we have reduced the number of major incidents and suspension days to single digits. When students are empowered with the tools to be successful, they will rise to the occasion.
Preliminary data indicates that the significant learning loss our students experienced due to the pandemic is being addressed through hard work and a sustained focus on deficient skills. We offered an extensive afterschool program tailored to support select students in reading recovery, provided all students with math and literacy intervention daily for 60 minutes, conducted data conferences, implemented a new literacy curriculum, and personalized math intervention to all students by addressing each child’s prerequisite needs. As a school, we observed exceptional growth on district benchmark assessments in literacy and math due to our strategic focus on data, instruction, and intervention, with over 60% of students on grade level in ELA and Math. The percent of students two or more grade levels below is now in the single digits.
Our school continued the expansion of the National Elementary Honor Society and had an intentional focus on increasing our gifted and talented population. During the school year, our gifted and talented population increased by nearly 20% from the previous year. The NEHS participated in various community service and community-building projects during the school year. Projects included food collection for Thanksgiving meals, a toy drive for Toys for Tots, item collection for a local animal shelter, and a food drive for CAPA. The NEHS paved the way for a Leader in Me Student Lighthouse Team in which students have a voice in school decision making.
We closed the year with high levels of student, staff, and parent satisfaction. 100% of teachers reported that they find meaning in their work and see themselves as part of our school another year. Our Leader in Me Measurable Results surveys report 80% overall satisfaction with the leadership, culture, and academics of our school. We are proud of the revival of our school during this unprecedented time and look forward to continuing to work with all stakeholders to help all students achieve at high levels next year. We will CRUSH our goals in 2023-2024!
Jason Osborne, Principal
Latoya Hagood, SIC Chair