Dear Parents/Guardians and Stakeholders,
Black Water Middle School is a fine art infused middle school that serves a diverse learning community of almost 800 students in grades 6-8. In our building, all students develop the world class skills and life and career characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by achieving greatness in academics, the arts, and athletics.
The school was established in 2007 due to increased enrollment in the Carolina Forest Community. Currently the school demographic profile comprises the following: 50% Caucasian, 22% African American, 24% Hispanic/Latino, and 4% other.
Black Water Middle School is staffed with highly qualified teachers and professionals that serve our student population in gifted and talented, general education, and special education classrooms. Approximately 60% of the teaching staff holds an advanced degree. Our school is helping all students develop the world class skills and life and career characteristics of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by placing our focus on a mindset that service plus leadership equals success in the areas of academics, the arts, and athletics.
Black Water Middle School offers a strong academic program that offers students the chance to earn high school credit in the following courses: Algebra I, Geometry, and English I. Our staff development plan has focused on increasing student engagement, collaborative planning, and working together to align standards, activities, and materials in our lesson plans. We implement cooperative learning structures to promote and develop self-direction, work ethic, and interpersonal skills in classroom learning. Horry County Schools believes in developing world class skills and world class knowledge. HCS also has a 1:1 personalized digital learning platform in a blended learning model. Our teachers and students engage with technology tools that include, but are not limited to: iReady, Quindew, Socrative, Google Classroom, Gizmo, Discovery Education, Edgenuity and other google applications to enhance instruction. We have worked with students to build their own digital portfolios. We continue to drive instructional decisions using data that allows us to provide the very best learning environment for all our students.
For the 2021-2022 academic year, over 50% of our students met their growth targets in ELA and Math. We had 8 students qualify as a South Carolina Junior Scholar, which was a significant increase from previous years. Our school improvement council is active and meets monthly to discuss areas of improvement and members are engaged in our school, to support our fine arts programs, athletics, Beta club, robotics, math counts and school-wide events. We are currently redefining and strengthening our parent organization (PTO) so we can partner with parents in our community and do what is best for our students.
Our fine arts department produces exceptional performances for our school and community. This year our students performed Annie Jr as our musical. We offer the only middle school dance program in our county with 6 showcase productions throughout the year and will host the fourth annual district gifted and talented dance camp, as well as the district gifted and talented art camp this summer. Band, orchestra, and chorus had two performances this year. We have passionate educators who are willing to go above and beyond to do what is best for students.
The students at Black Water Middle are the focus of everything that we do. We put service to students above all else. Our school is a welcoming center focused on exceptional teaching and learning. Thank you for investing in our children and supporting our school, as we continue to strengthen the Black Water Experience by focusing on the mindset that service plus leadership equals success.
Respectfully,
Marcus Timmons, Principal Dr. Jamia Richmond, School Improvement Council Chair
