Dacusville Elementary is helping all students develop the world-class skills and life career characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina graduate and challenging our students to utilize their minds by setting goals for success in and beyond the classroom. The vision of DES is to successfully empower you for the world you’ll be changing. Our mission is to partner with the home and community to engage and challenge each student in a safe and supportive environment. It is our goal is to ensure ALL students learn at high levels and our tagline “Promoting Positivity. Growing Greatness,” reflects our intentional focus on whole child education and our belief in the importance of teaching students the twenty-four positive character strengths.
Dacusville Elementary is a rural school, nestled in the northern region of Pickens County. We served 591 students this past year in grades 3K – 5th. Students in our PreK programs learn via hands-on lessons that value play, exploration, inquiry, as well as small group instruction. All teachers strive daily to provide world-class knowledge through rigorous, standards-based instruction. Our students are provided with direct instruction in literacy skills such as decoding, comprehension, and writing through mini-lessons and are given opportunities to grow in their literacy skills during small group instruction and 1:1 conferences in reading and writing. Students needing Tier 2 intervention in ELA are served through small group instruction utilizing various strategies teachers have learned through LETRS training. Math instruction is equally rigorous and similar in format where teachers provide whole group instruction and transition to small group instruction using a gradual release model as well as centers/stations that include hands-on review of skills and differentiated online instruction through the district-provided programs, iReady Pathways, IXL, and Dreambox. Our teachers collaborate weekly to discuss standards, develop common assessments, and plan lessons that teach students problem-solving strategies and skills necessary to solve real-world problems.
Our students benefit from multiple learning formats including individual, small-group, and whole-group instruction. Creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving are woven into the fabric of daily lessons across all subject areas. Students are given opportunities to work and as team in academic core classes as well as our related arts classrooms to solve authentic problems using a blend of prior knowledge and new learning. Our 1:1 technology offerings via our Chrome tablets and Chromebooks allow students to research, share, and work collaboratively in a digital format to effectively integrate technology and media into their learning process. Students have the opportunity to strengthen their communication skills via classroom presentations, reading to audiences at our Authors’ Tea events, producing our Daily Dolphin News Show, or performing in one of our many musical theater performances.
We believe at our core that students must develop the Life and Career Characteristics of integrity, self-direction, global perspective, perseverance, work ethic, and interpersonal skills to be productive citizens. We just completed our 7th year of implementation of the Positivity Project, a character education curriculum that provides daily, differentiated lessons centered around Positive Psychology with an overarching focus on an “Other People Mindset”, and 24 positive character strengths that include several of the skills mentioned above along with others such as leadership, love of learning, bravery, kindness, optimism, and more. Our students engage in healthy discussions each morning during team huddles and often create and implement activities to share their learning or skill development school-wide or with the greater community. Students are also involved in service-learning opportunities including Country Santa, food pantry donations, Valentines for Veterans, and The United Way. We recognize Distinguished Dolphins via daily announcements and monthly celebrations for displaying various character strengths. At the end of the year, we have students and staff nominate students for outstanding citizenship to receive a Distinguished Dolphin or Gold Dolphin award.
To ensure we meet the “healthy” and “safe” tenets of whole child education all students have access to free breakfast in the classroom, free lunch, a minimum of 40 minutes of unstructured play outside daily, and 90 minutes of physical education each week. Our school counselor works diligently to help coordinate support for families in poverty regarding basic as well as other needs. Students who qualify can participate in the Backpack Snack Program, which provides food for these students on the weekend. We seek to have all students feel supported and challenged as well. Beyond the support given by school staff, we have a very involved PTO which we call our Dolphin Support Organization (DSO). Together we actively seek to involve all of our parents and community members through numerous opportunities to engage such as Meet the Teacher, Open House, Family Literacy Nights, YMCA Mentors, STEM Nights, Morning S.T.E.A.M., All Pro Dads, Muffins for Mom, Donuts with Dad, Parent Playbook Workshops, Authors’ Tea, and so much more.
At Dacusville Elementary, we believe all children can learn and be successful, especially if they are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. The best way for us to ensure this happens is to foster and maintain a culture of community that invites teachers, students, administrators, and parents to work collaboratively for the good of every student. We are proud of our students’ success and we’ll continue to support them in their development as future SC graduates.
Nina Eller, School Improvement Council Chair
Travis A. Chapman, Principal
