Boiling Springs Elementary is helping all students develop world class skills, life and career characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by offering a safe and nurturing learning environment where all students can a grow and develop. Our faculty and staff take pride in offering students a variety of real-world learning opportunities with a blend of both community outreach projects and opportunities to enhance the arts.
This year, Boiling Springs Elementary, was proud to welcome students from three other elementary schools to our BSES family. With the opening of Sugar Ridge Elementary School, our school went through some rezoning for the 2021-2022 school year. This gave our school family the opportunity to welcome new faces and blend these school families into one.
BSE has a continued their partnership with the Spartanburg Academic Movement to implement Continuous Improvement. SAM is a non-profit community organization that partners with stake holders from the business, education, community and government organizations to better the local community. The Spartanburg Academic movement offers Continuous Improvement Courses for educators to introduce them to the PDSA cycles as a means to track student progress and plan next steps. The Plan, Do, Study, Act process requires teachers to set goals and progress monitor those goals until the end of the unit cycle. To further the development of our services and their ability to meet the needs of our very diverse population, BSE teachers completed a book study using John Hattie's "10 Mindframes for Visible Learning: Teaching for Success". Teachers started the year off evaluating their own effectiveness on student learning. This baseline data was used by the administrative staff to provide focused professional development each month during faculty meetings. Topics of study included: evaluating their impact on student learning, becoming a change agent, identifying what success looks like for students, striving for a challenge, collaborating with students and peers, and using assessments to inform practice. At the end of the school year, teachers had to once again evaluate their own effectiveness in meeting the needs of students. Our Teaching and Learning Teams set the stage for teachers to reflect on their current practice and enhance our efforts in assisting each student to reach his/her full potential. These collaborative times are used to put into practice what had been studied during out monthly faculty meetings. We worked to breakdown the language of the standards and ensure that we are assessing at the same level of rigor. With some many new students, it was imperative that we spend time getting to know the needs of these students. Investing time in getting to know our students as students and learners is time well spent. Teacher also spent time identifying success criteria for students, so that our students knew what success would look like in what they were learning.
To ensure that we are meeting the needs of every student, teachers worked to develop more individualized lessons for small group instruction. The data from the SC Ready tests, iReady test, and formative assessments, is the driving force behind our academic decisions. We continue to make adjustments to our curriculum to ensure that we are meeting the needs of all of our students. PDSA cycles have helped teachers to identify those students that need more support and to note those impactful teaching strategies that best support our students. We are thrilled to offer additional assistance to some of our students through our Response to Intervention Program. With the addition of two Academic Support Technicians, we are able to offer even more support to those students needing it in the area of math and reading.
Boiling Springs Elementary School is a proud PBIS School. BSE faculty and staff developed our Puppy Code using the “The Essential 55” by Ron Clark. The Puppy Code is used as a character focus to remind students to PAWS (Proactive, Aware, Win-Win Attitude, and Successful) and do the right thing. During morning meetings, teachers meet with students to discuss those character expectations and emphasize our PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention Supports) initiatives. Staff members recognize students, throughout the school day, for making good character choices. Students are awarded Bulldog Bucks for their good choices at school. We publicly recognize these students for their excellent character each week with a weekly drawing to celebrate their good choices. We also host school wide celebrations to acknowledge those students committed to showing our Puppy Code with a virtual auction and a DJ dance party.
This year, our teachers continued to ensure that safety was top priority for our students. Our teachers certainly embraced the guideline changes and different challenges of this school year to ensure that our students continued to be top priority. BSE teachers worked to develop flexible learning boards to ensure that instruction at school and home were parallel. This would ensure that our students were not missing the skills and learning opportunities going on in the classroom during their absence.
We take pride in highlighting our Reader Leaders and Published Pups at Boiling Springs Elementary School. At the end of each month, students from every classroom were celebrated for their effort in becoming a better reader or writer. Our reader leaders were recognized for their work and dedication to improving their reading skills. These students were invited to get a book from our book vending machine. Our published pups were highlighted by having their work displayed in the hallways. This year, we were excited to add Mathematician of the Year to highlight those students excelling in math.
Boiling Springs Elementary is continuing to learn and grow each year. With continued growth, our faculty and staff will also continue to grow to offer our students and their families the very best educational experience. We are thankful for the support of our families and community as we strive to prepare students for a successful future.
Michelle Kimbrell, Principal
Kendra Turk, SIC Chair
