At Matilda Dunston Elementary School, we help all students develop the World Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate by empowering teachers and students using critical thinking and collaboration. We continue to focus on a high level of rigor, hands-on experiences, and active engagement through arts and literacy integration. Our teachers and staff continually seek opportunities to remain abreast of current and effective classroom strategies such as reading and writing workshops, Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) Program, differentiated instruction, research based interventions, classroom management best practices, curriculum integration, innovative use of technology, and analyzing data to identify strengths and areas for improvement. We focused on unpacking the standards in order to increase the level of teacher knowledge required for teaching and assessing specific concepts.
Our focus is to immerse young students in a developmentally appropriate, rigorous, and engaging, literacy-based curriculum. Creating differentiated learning experiences to enhance learning opportunities for all students will ultimately develop skills that produce lifelong learners and productive citizens. A common planning period is provided for teachers daily, so they can collaborate during the school day. With shared planning times, teachers are able to work on curriculum integration, data analysis, and identification of individual student needs.
Our Professional Learning Community (PLC) meetings continue to focus on grade-level and teacher needs. We work to identify instructional strategies that are most effective for each grade level. We collaborate with outside instructional specialists to strengthen our math, reading, writing, and our adaptive digital content usage. We will continue to incorporate the PLAN, DO, STUDY, and ACT model in order to identify areas of strength and weaknesses.
Cheryl Savage, Principal
Stephanie Strange, SIC Chairperson
