At Cotton Belt Elementary School, we are cultivating a service-oriented community of learners who strive for personal growth and excellence as communicators, collaborators, creators, and critical thinkers. Our school embodies the vision of our district - To Learn, Serve, and Give as ONE - as we work together to build meaningful connections and strong relationships within our building, across the district, and throughout our community.
Each day, we strive to provide an environment that supports personalized learning opportunities to meet the individual needs of our students as well as develops college and career readiness and world class skills. At Cotton Belt we prioritize the whole child, working together to not only provide rigorous student-centered learning experiences that result in academic achievement but also focus on the social and emotional needs of our students in order to help them reach their full potential.
During the 2022-23 school year, we continued our implementation of the Lucy Calkins Workshop Model which includes reading, writing, and phonics. In addition, we began a vertical and horizontal exploration of our math standards to ensure we are providing high quality instruction and opportunities for mastery to all learners. Together, we have examined, explored, and adopted student-centered learning practices in order to increase engagement and create student-driven classroom environments that support conversations, choice, problem-solving techniques, and highly personalized learning experiences.
One of our greatest sources of pride at Cotton Belt is our incredible village of educators that make a positive impact on the lives of our students every day. In order to maximize that impact, we are committed to being part of a learning organization that embraces high quality professional development and continuous opportunities for growth in order to build teacher capacity. In addition, our classroom teachers work in partnership with our interventionists, related arts teachers, mental health therapist, special education teachers, administration, and other specialized building and district staff to develop the World Class Skills of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. Together our village works to ensure that our students feel safe, loved, and supported each day as they are held to high expectations in reaching their potential. We also value our relationships with our families, understanding that the home-school partnership is vital to a child's education. This year, we have enjoyed family events such as Duke Energy Science Night, music performances, literacy nights, and more.
Striving toward excellence, we continue to focus on a variety of data sources, including but not limited to academic feedback and social emotional learning surveys to make instructional decisions and meet the diverse needs of our students. Additionally, data is intentionally used to provide a balanced literacy approach to teaching reading and writing, utilize technology tools to enhance instruction, and develop and implement targeted interventions and extensions for students in math and reading. We also use this data to provide direction and guidance regarding the professional development opportunities we design for staff.
As we move into the 2023-24 school year, we will continue to work toward improving our Tier One instruction, implementing student-centered learning practices, providing high quality academic interventions and extensions, supporting the needs of the whole child, and celebrating the growth of all of our students.
Jennifer Bolin, Principal
Paige Timmons, Chairperson/School Improvement Council
