Augusta Circle Elementary School (ACE) is helping all students develop the World Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by providing a safe, caring, and academically challenging learning environment. We provide such an environment through the implementation of our school vision: a school that has a “Legacy of Excellence and Leadership."
ACE is a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence, a Palmetto’s Finest School, and a Red Carpet school. It is a traditional elementary school serving a student population of 550 students. Nestled in an urban neighborhood in Greenville, S.C., ACE is the focal point of the community and is rich in the tradition and the history of the city. The school offers a rigorous academic program and continues to maintain high expectations for all its students.
Our teachers implement continuous improvement by adopting new and effective strategies in the classroom such as: one-to-one Chromebooks, balanced literacy, personalized reading instruction, computer lab instruction, project learning in science and social studies, and writing across the curriculum. We have additional support from our literacy specialist, math interventionist, resource teachers, speech teacher, instructional coach, and a Greenville Mental Health counselor.
At Augusta Circle we also have other programs outside the academic environment. School-wide we focus on embedding the 7 Habits of Healthy Kids in all that we do. Our guidance counselor teaches the 7 habits in monthly classroom guidance lessons, and teachers help students practice the habits throughout the day. We partner with Mentor Greenville so that select students enjoy lunch with adult mentors once a week. This year, the PTA organized three service projects, a family outreach program for ACE at-risk students, and a week long, in-depth study of a foreign county - Botswana. Our music teacher offered chorus to 4th and 5th grade students who enjoyed singing. They practiced after school and performed before the student body as well as several venues in the community. Students participated after school in our Percussion Club and Lego Robotics. This year we have enjoyed conversational Spanish in 4th and 5th grade classrooms.
2017-2018 was an exciting and successful school year. The PTA had another productive year under the leadership of Mary Duff Rayneri and Elizabeth Palmer (PTA Co-Presidents).They received a grant of $950 from the Metropolitan Arts Council for our Cultural Arts Week, and over 425 volunteers contributed 14,060 hours of work to the school.
As a learning community, teachers implemented Continuous Improvement, Compass Learning technology, Digital Learning and Focused Learning strategies to meet our goals of (1) improving student achievement in reading and math and (2) closing the gap between FARM and non-FARM students. We continue to be the school where “Children are the Heart.”
Kerry Bannister, Principal
Lauren Price, SIC Chairman
