Jefferson Elementary School is helping all students develop the world-class skills and life and career characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by creating a safe, diverse, innovative, and academically challenging environment. Our primary responsibility is to prepare our students for college and career readiness by providing rigorous, meaningful academic experiences. To fulfill that responsibility, we must support the continuous professional growth of our adult learners. Our teachers engage in learning opportunities focusing on literacy, math, data-driven instruction, social and emotional learning, and technology. Student growth is directly tied to teacher growth.
Our school’s mission, vision, and beliefs reflect our district's mission, vision, and beliefs. As we dream of the future, we want our students to be responsible, show initiative, be creative, set and meet goals, resolve conflicts and problems, think critically, learn from mistakes, and contribute to our community and world. While we intensely focus on academics, we want to teach the whole child so our students can reach their highest potential. In 23-24, we have focused on instructional practices to ensure quality instruction at the Tier 1 level. Through high expectations and an inclusive environment, our staff works to design personalized learning experiences that meet the diverse needs of all students. Summative data from SC READY and SC PASS each school year and the data from formative assessments, such as NWEA MAP, provide direction and guidance regarding our student’s strengths and needs and the professional development opportunities we design for staff. Looking at NWEA MAP data taken in the spring, we noticed that the percentage of first- and second-grade students that should be expected to achieve "meets expectations" or "exceeds expectations" when they take the third-grade South Carolina College-and Career-Ready Assessment (SC READY) is much lower than desired. We found that 45% of second-grade English language arts (ELA) students and 46% of second-grade math students were on track to score either “meets expectations” or “exceeds expectations” on the third-grade SC READY. Similarly, from the MAP data gathered during spring administration, we found that 50% of first-grade ELA students and 53% of first-grade math students were on track to score either “meets expectations” or “exceeds expectations” on the third-grade SC READY.
As a response to the data reviewed from the 2023-2024 school year, we will continue with our master schedule to allow us to provide students with multiple opportunities for intervention and extension in ELA and Mathematics. We will continue to support our staff professionally to grow their learning capacity because students grow when teachers grow. Because learning is the core of effective teaching, we will continue our collaborative planning and work to become proficient in using our Student-Centered Teaching and Learning Framework. We will also continue focusing on becoming a true Professional Learning Community. We are working to address the four core questions of PLCS: 1. What do we want students to know and be able to do? 2. How will we know when they have learned it? 3. What will we do when they have yet to learn it? 4. How will we respond if students already know it? We have conducted data dives using our schoolwide and district formative assessment data, focused professional development on helping teachers effectively “Teach, Model, Demonstrate” the learning targets, and worked collaboratively to develop quality lessons to improve their assessment design and student engagement. Therefore, based on the teacher observation data, our future professional development focus areas include the following high-leverage practices: 1. Including guided/independent practice portion in each lesson 2. Using timely and specific feedback to clarify student misconceptions and push student acceleration in thinking critically, and 3. The development of aligned and rigorous common assessments to assess student mastery of priority standards in each subject area. In addition to these professional development efforts, we are continuing our work to address our students’ social-emotional and behavioral needs.
Finally, our character education program emphasizes good citizenship, interpersonal skills, and participation in service-connected activities to build community. We will continue to work with the community and participate in programs outside the school that nurture the characteristics and skills of responsible citizens in a global society.
At Jefferson Elementary School, we believe in ensuring students and staff reach their fullest potential. To do that, the school, staff members, families, and the community must share the responsibility of educating all enrolled. Together, we can ensure the safety of our school while planning an accelerated and challenging learning experience for all students.
Thank you for being so supportive in helping develop our future South Carolina graduates and world leaders.
Mattie Hughes, Principal
Kimberly Whetstine, Chairperson/School Improvement Council
