At Joseph R. Pye Elementary School, we remain #STEAMstrong. We are committed to helping all students develop world class academic and soft skills that support life and career characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by focusing on being in the right place, at the right time, and doing the right thing. We are a progressive community of learners located in the heart of one of the fastest growing districts in South Carolina. Our highest enrollment this year was 839 students in 4K through 5th grade. We are fully staffed to meet the needs of our total school population with 115 professional and support staff members. JPES has been recognized as a model school, winning the State Palmetto’s Finest 2018 Award and the National Partners in 21st Century Learning Exemplar School 2017 Award. We are also the proud recipients of several education grants and honors over the past 11 years of our existence.
JPES Mission remains steadfast and focused on keeping the needs of all children and their learning first. We prepare today’s learners to be tomorrow’s leaders as they explore, discover, learn, and lead. The JPES vision is to be recognized as a world class STEAM school that integrates the arts and sciences in a highly engaged learning environment. Our School Improvement Goals are aligned with the Dorchester School District Two Guiding Tenets of Relationships, Rigor, and Relevance. Our school improvement goals address the need to improve math performance by integrating math across content areas. Recently we have added a Math Coach who works with staff and students to improve math fluency in grades K-5. We also employ a STEAM Coach, who assists teachers with planning of STEAM Units that support our instructional focus.
We begin with high-quality curriculum to develop world class knowledge. Our teachers drive instruction using the SC state standards to launch our STEAM approach. Teachers follow pacing guides to ensure delivery of relevant instruction consistently across all classrooms. Teachers provide differentiated instruction for advancement and intervention strategies to close achievement gaps. We engage in high-quality planning and deliver high-quality instruction using an approach to teaching and learning that provides a highly engaged learning environment. Teachers are all trained to use explicit direct instruction (EDI) to maximize instructional time. We hire highly qualified teachers who use the four critical questions of a PLC to plan and assess effectiveness of the instructional cycle: 1) What do we want students to learn? 2) How will we know they learned it? 3) What will we do for those who did not learn it? 4) What will we do for those who already know it? As a result, instruction is tiered for a more personalized learning experience.
Through a challenging time in education, we have been proud to maintain our strong sense of community and to provide quality time for students. JPES appreciates the value of creating classrooms that address the academic, social, and emotional needs of all students and their families. We teach kindness and compassion as part of daily life, and career characteristics to help our students navigate 21st Century learning and STEER their way to excellence.
