Pleasant 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 all of our students, staff, parents, and community with an engaging, safe, and rigorous learning environment. Our school purpose as a community of learners is to strive to create a safe environment focused on high achievement through a rigorous curriculum and student/teacher engagement. We work to instill a sense of community and positive citizenship while encouraging our students to SOAR in STEAM initiatives and college/career readiness. Our staff is committed to implementing innovative and engaging instruction to help all students reach their greatest potential.
Pleasant Knoll Middle School finished the 2018-2019 school year as a school with many accomplishments. We inducted over 100 new members to our Jr. Beta Club. 178 PKMS students took the PSAT and over 600 students finished the year on the A/B Honor Roll.
Our Related Arts classes also contributed many awards to our school. Twenty-four students received York County Honor Band recognition, twenty-seven students were selected for all region band, and two students earned All State Band recognition. Our art program inducted twenty-eight new members to the National Jr. Art Honor Society. Our school also held its a musical production, “Peter Pan, Jr.”.
Pleasant Knoll had a large number of students that participated in extra-curricular activities where students and staff were able to truly focus on collaboration and creativity. Our Academic Challenge teams and Science Olympiad team had very successful seasons. Our Mock Trial team finished 3rd in the State Competition. Our athletic teams also had a wonderful year by winning conference championships in 7th Grade Football, 8th Grade Football, 7th Grade Volleyball, 8th Grade Volleyball, and Girls Track.
Our community at Pleasant Knoll also was able to participate in many charity fundraisers. Our staff and students raised money for Breast Cancer Awareness, Juvenile Diabetes ($2,000), Care Center of Fort Mill, and Doctors Without Borders.
Our school also provided several activities for the community to get involved with our school. Our school community all read “Refugee" as part of our One School, One Book initiative and hosted a Literacy/STEAM Night in March with over 350 attendees. All Pleasant Knoll students participated in a STEAM Challenge where they designed useful products for refugees to use. Students were able to use critical thinking skills to design these products online and present to their classmates. Community members came in and were judges for the overall school winners.
Academically, our students were very successful in the classroom and on the SC Ready and SC PASS state testing. 73.3% of our students scored "Met or Exemplary" in English/Language Arts while 77.7% scored "Met or Exemplary" in Math. 88.6% of our students were "Met or Exemplary in Science and 96.6% or our students scored "Met or Exemplary" in Social Studies.
The faculty and staff were able to participate in several opportunities with professional development, emphasizing on communication and collaboration. Our district staff in the technology department led a year long professional development on implementing technology in the classroom, as we prepare to go 1:1 with Chromebooks next school year. We also continued to partner with Discovery Education in helping our teachers provide engaging learning experiences in the classroom.
Our SOAR program, which provides students with enrichment and intervention opportunities four days a week was an excellent time for our school community to have opportunities to grow in areas of collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication. Using student data to identify where our students needed support during this time was beneficial to our school success.
We are so proud of the accomplishments of our students this school year and we look forward to continuing to grow and learn at Pleasant Knoll Middle School.
Grey Young, Principal
Kurt Merkle, SIC Chair