The faculty and staff of Powdersville High School are preparing all students to develop World Class Skills set forth in the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by incorporating creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication across all areas of our curriculum.
Throughout their English courses, students are challenged to use critical thinking skills through inquiry, research, and text-based analysis. Students are challenged at various levels with varying works of literature. At all levels, students are presented with choices in their reading through intricately designed literature circle units. This allows our students the opportunity to express creativity and collaboration with peers. With a strong push towards text dependent analysis, students create arguments and provide textual evidence throughout the year in order to be successful on the End of Course Exam. Likewise, math courses are vertically aligned between grade levels to insure that students are trained in using critical thinking skills to solve real-world application problems. Students are taught how to use mathematical vocabulary to communicate problems and solutions. The curriculum set forth in science (9-12) requires students in classes like Biology, Chemistry, and Physics to critically apply the scientific method to real-world scenarios. Students are also pushed to practice creativity, collaboration, and communication through activities such as building a submarine to navigate an underwater obstacle course, building rockets, and gathering data and developing experiments with a narrowed lens towards our community’s wild life ecosystems. In Social Studies students are tasked with critical thinking through focusing on essential skills such as primary source analysis and geographical thinking. Students work on both collaboration and communication in class debates, Socratic seminars, and research projects. Assignments also promote creativity by having students put themselves in the shoes of others through multicultural projects and historical fiction. Overall, the educators at Powdersville High School are dedicated to producing world class graduates and understand that the skills set forth in the profile are skills that students will need for decades to come.
In accordance with these high standards, the students of Powdersville High School routinely demonstrate World Class Knowledge and Skills through their performance on state and national testing. The graduating class of 2023 achieved a graduation rate of over 94%, which demonstrates the commitment of students and faculty to preparing students for both College and Careers after graduation.
Beyond our tremendous academic success, Powdersville High School educators are proud of the opportunities that are presented to our students through our various elective courses, arts programs, and athletics. Students also have a wide variety of electives from which to choose ranging from Foods and Family Life Relationships to Film Criticism and Digital Literacy. We also have excellent choral, orchestra, and theater programs. Our Varsity Choir earned their first "Superior with Distinction" in the history of PVHS Choral Program. The Patriot Band continued its tradition of excellence on the marching field, in the winter indoor ensembles, and our spring Wind Ensembles, all earning multiple first place awards. For the fifth year in a row, the Creative Writing program has produced yet another edition to the literary magazine The Ville. Finally, 2022-23 was another outstanding year for our athletic programs. The year was highlighted by the Patriot Football team, Boy's XC team, and Track and Field teams, who were all State Runners-Up. The Powdersville High School community acknowledges that creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication are developed as much on stages and playing fields as in classrooms. Through these programs, Powdersville High School seeks to create well-rounded students with the World Class Skills necessary for success.
Adam Lanford, Ed. D., Principal
Powdersville High School
Christina Brooks, President
Powdersville High School Improvement Council
