The 2021-2022 school year, North Central Elementary's first year as a school, was unlike any other school year anywhere. On August 20, 2019 the Kershaw County Board of School Trustees voted to build a new elementary school consolidating Baron Dekalb, Bethune, and Mt. Pisgah elementary schools. Although beginning the school year as one school, NCE operated from the three separate campuses of the community schools for the entire first quarter of the school year. Only with shared administration between them, the three sites had to operate independent of the others until moving into the completed new building in October of 2021. The new building brought its own set of challenges as NCE had to reset the school year with our students and staff, especially as it relates to learning new procedures, logistics, and even getting to know new team members and co-workers. Rising to the challenge, North Central Elementary's faculty and staff successfully pulled off the impossible and provided our 468 students with an exceptional learning experience amidst the numerous external distractions they faced throughout the year.
North Central Elementary now serves approximately 530 students in the northern half of Kershaw County. Located in a rural part of Kershaw County, covering a 350 square mile attendance zone, our students come from a wide range of backgrounds that make our school a melting pot of cultural diversity. We strive for Excellence…Always by fulfilling our student’s individual academic, developmental, and social needs by creating a joyful environment for our children, in which we value their diversity and uniqueness. We cultivate their individuality through enhanced educational experiences that include a comprehensive library, the arts, physical education, character education, and technology curriculums that promote and create life and career characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate.
At North Central Elementary we are committed to making learning fun for all students. With initiatives like our Family Literacy Christmas Night and One Book, One School we build a sense of community among not only our students, faculty and staff, but our families as well. We strive to create and develop the whole child outside of the academic world, where our students participate in community service projects that include; United Way, Jump Rope for Heart, K.A.R.E. of Kershaw canned food drive, and Easter baskets for local nursing homes. Our focus is ensuring that our students become well-rounded citizens by empowering and challenging all students to become productive members of a globally dynamic society.
Our teachers are entrusted professionals that create an environment of learning by seeking continual professional development opportunities, participating in various professional learning communities, and embracing their leadership roles within the walls of their classrooms, as well as the school community as a whole. Our teachers have collaboratively built and implemented into the fabric of North Central Elementary, innovative and effective strategies and initiatives that include, but are not limited to, differentiated instruction during small group, enrichment and intervention blocks that target specific needs, common team lessons and assessments, and data driven instruction that gives our students personalized attention in their learning.
We believe the school, family, and community must share in the educational responsibility of our children. We create a culture in which the school and community foster excellence in academic and social emotional development of all students in a safe, and inviting environment because at North Central Elementary it’s Excellence…Always.
