White Knoll Middle School is helping all students develop the World-Class skills and life and career characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by providing a challenging academic program delivered by competent and caring professionals in an engaging classroom environment. In Lexington District One and at WKMS, our vision is to empower EACH child to design the future. To see that vision become reality, we focus on two key priorities. First, all students must believe before they can achieve. We want all students to dream and set goals for their achievement. Second, we have worked hard on our students’ social-emotional development. We have done this through our advocacy time where we use the 7 Mindsets and AVID philosophies to drive our daily advocacy time. Through their Flight class, students learn about how to apply the 7 Mindsets, organize their bookbags, take virtual college tours, and study.
This year, WKMS expanded our Advancement Via Individual Determination program. Students in all three grade levels were able to participate in an elective that focuses on challenging students to achieve at a higher level through developing goals, organization, and dreaming of their future. This year we had 87 students participate in the AVID elective. WKMS moved to a schoolwide AVID implementation. Through the initiative, we hope to challenge more students in honor classes so that they leave WKMS with a plan for their careers as they enter high school. Students will then be able to continue their AVID classes at White Knoll High School.
At the beginning of the year, our students participated in a program designed to identify students who were in distress socially and emotionally. These students were then provided appropriate services based on their needs and permission from the parents.
As a school, we celebrated various heritages throughout the year and focused on building skills such as gratitude, kindness, giving back, perspective-taking, standing up to bullying/the bystander effect, and respecting differences. Our school worked hard in helping students and parents connect to the various mental health organizations that assist students through difficult issues. To celebrate the many different things that students and teachers were doing, we developed a positive referrals process that allows teachers and students to write positive referrals, then have them noticed on our social media. This year we celebrated more than 1,500 positive referrals from students and teachers. We are very proud of their individual achievements.
In the classroom, we focused on our workshop model that enables students and teachers to focus on individual needs. Teachers present a short lesson, then take time to work in small groups to assist all students as they work on mastering state standards. The students showed growth in math and ELA through our school Star testing program.
WKMS is an Arts in Basic Curriculum (ABC) school that infuses arts into the everyday classroom that creates a hook to draw the engagement of all students. Arts teachers and core teachers created lesson plans that were more about applying various concepts through the use of visual arts, music, and theater. Every student has a chance to take drama, band, orchestra, art and, next year, dance. The hope is to allow students to see how math, English, science, and social studies related to real-world situations.
Finally, WKMS is committed to creating a world-class education through a challenging curriculum in the core classes, with access to French, Spanish, Latin, and Chinese classes, coding courses through Project Lead The Way, and a plethora of art classes. The ultimate goal for every child at WKMS is to have a career dream and plan whereby to accomplish it in high school and beyond. For we truly believe: if you believe, you can achieve.
Don Hardie, Principal
Marion Moore, SIC Chair
