At James B. Edwards (JBE) Elementary, The School of Global Leadership, our mission is to provide authentic, challenging, creative experiences in a supportive and engaging environment in order to develop global leaders with strong character, ready to serve their communities.

We believe that the deepest, most long-lasting learning happens when students are being creative, critically thinking, communicating, and collaborating with others in authentic experiences. This year JBE expanded the 2nd Step Curriculum school-wide, providing all students with direct instruction in social-emotional skills. These skills, which will be developed year after year help students identify and deal with their emotions, as well as improve communication and collaboration with peers. These social-emotional skills enable students to effectively engage in collaborative, authentic experiences. Some examples of these long-lasting learning experiences include JBE students propagating and selling plants in the school greenhouse raising $5,000 for the horticulture program, which then allowed students to grow and harvest food to include in the Lowcountry Food Bank’s Backpack Buddies program. Outside of the greenhouse, students built four boats by hand and launched them at the Charleston Parks conservancy Spring Boat Launch and Family Fun Day at Colonial Lake in Downtown Charleston, SC. Additionally, JBE students created and hosted weekly news shows and piloted a compostable lunch tray program leading to the roll out of compostable lunch trays throughout the Charleston County District.

We are proud to provide authentic learning experiences such as these which develop global leaders with strong character ready to serve their communities!

Robin Fountain, Principal

Lauren Vickers, SIC Chair