Blacksburg Primary School is helping all students develop the World Class Knowledge, World Class Skills, and Life and Career Characteristics of the Profile of the SC Graduate by providing students with a safe, caring, and academically challenging learning environment. Our school motto is: "Where we play, learn and grow together!" Our vision is Every Child Every Day. Our goals at BPS are to:
- We ENGAGE in authentic and rigorous learning opportunities that honor individual differences and learning styles.
- We SERVE others and make the world a better place.
- We CONNECT by building positive relationships in a safe and caring community.
- We EMPOWER the whole child through academics, social, emotional, and physical well-being.
- We COLLABORATE to impart knowledge every day.
We believe the following:
- Every student deserves a quality education.
- Every student can learn.
- All students are unique and are provided with opportunities to reach their full potential.
- Every child deserves a community and school support system.
- The environment should support emotional, social, cultural, and educational needs (the whole child).
We support the district’s early childhood curriculum in PreK-2. Creative Curriculum is developmentally appropriate for early childhood students. This is a research-based program. Title I funds will allow us to continue these programs. At BPS we also have programs outside the academic world to focus on the development of the whole child such as Campo Giorno and First Tee. Our Project-Based Learning projects are helping transform our students in order to gain many of the characteristics of the SC Graduate Profile. In addition, we have come together to collectively lead the school. We have dissolved our team chairs and continue to develop meeting norms. We will invite all staff members to attend and serve on the Leadership Committee. Collective Leadership is a path we plan on continuing. We also will dive deeper into the AVID program and look at PAIDEIA to introduce Socratic Seminars so that we truly hear the thoughts of our student body. We have a new Book Vending Machine that will ensure that our students get at least two appropriately leveled and chosen books. Additionally, we have renewed our science lab and purchased Engineering is Elementary kits for every teacher and all classes next year. Lastly, we have a new Greenhouse to incorporate science standards and an outdoor classroom setting.
We will continue working with high school students to create carnival games and use these games as a fund-raiser for Iron City Ministries, creating our own fairy tales and turning those into plays and videos for their parents. Teachers participate after school in staff development to focus on reading, writing, math, integrated curriculum, differentiated instruction, RtI, and are constantly seeking new strategies to use in the classroom such as Project-Based Learning, Reading Interventions, Fountas and Pinell Phonics kits, Renaissance Learning, iReady (replaces STAR), GOLD, DRA+2, STEM, Jan Richardson's Guided Reading, Leveled Literacy Intervention and data analysis to help drive the instruction. We are very proud of our academic progress.
Professional development is provided for teachers on a regular basis to focus on raising scores in all subject areas. Data notebooks, MTSS (RtI) data, LAP folders, Intervention cards, running records, and anecdotal notes are kept on each student. The majority of our students have met or exceeded in Early Literacy and Early Numeracy. The majority of our 2nd graders met or exceeded in reading and met or exceeded in STAR Math. We will continue using LLI to target Tier II and III RtI students during a targeted instruction time built into our master schedule. RtI data will be recorded in our Enrich system and used to keep our processes systemic.
We are looking into strengthening our positive behavior intervention system to include a more holistic approach. This will consist of creating houses, much like teachers viewed at the Ron Clark Academy or some type of schoolwide program (Book Vending Machine will play a role). We use PBIS to showcase positive behaviors. Our students receive rewards through this program for displaying positive behaviors. We celebrate these behaviors by giving these points which allow the students to "purchase" such items as lunch with the principal, eat with a friend from another class, books, pencils, etc. Our guidance counselor also teaches the character education program "Core Essentials" sponsored by one of our partners, Chic-fil-A. Each school year, our first and second graders participate in the DARE program once a month. Our entire school body plans to continue participation in Relay for Life, Pennies for Pasta (Blood Cancer Awareness), March of Dimes, and Ronald McDonald program as well as other philanthropy causes. We partner with Children’s Cancer Partners of the Carolinas by having “Kids in Lids” days throughout the year. We have implemented Boosterthon for the past two years to fund professional development needs and to build every classroom's library. We will host the Boosterthon Fundraiser in the Fall this year to raise much-needed funds.
BPS will plan family events such as parent reads, parent workshops, math nights, and family fun nights. This year, we were again selected to participate as 1 of 32 Collective Leadership Schools in the state. As stated above, this initiative has seen all staff become leaders and serve as key decision-makers as well as choose parent stakeholders to take on leadership roles at our school. We have some work to do, but have started to listen to our stakeholders and make subtle changes. Parents remain instrumental in this process by reading with their child(ren) every night. Students are given books on a daily basis and parents are asked to read no less than 20 minutes per day with their child. The SC Dept. of Education collects data from surveys regarding learning environment, social and physical environment, and home-school relations. We will use Title I funds to support parental involvement through such things as mentioned above.
Technology is utilized through our related arts computer teacher, Nooks, Kindles, Chromebooks, robots, iPads, and laptops that are used daily. Teachers also use current up-to-date technology in the classroom to facilitate instruction, such as coding activities and the Dash and Dot Robots. Software licenses, jump drives, and headphones are purchased for use with all devices. We have four national board-certified teachers. Our Teacher of the Year is Lydia Cooper (SIC Chair) and our Support Staff of the Year is Sonia Pennington.
We cannot wait to continue our journey! We are BPS.
SIC Chair: Lydia Cooper; Principal: Michael Bender