Three Lexington County School District 1 schools that didn’t do well on the latest SC School Report Cards have plans to improve students' academic performance.

During its regular Dec. 12 meeting, the Lexington County School District 1 school board held their first reading for improvement plans for Gilbert Elementary, Pelion High and White Knoll High. The plans were created in response to the schools receiving an overall ‘unsatisfactory’ or ‘below average’ on the annual state evaluations.

School Report Cards are completed each year for every public school in the state, evaluating their performance.

According to Mary Gaskins, chief academic officer for the district, all schools that have received the unsatisfactory rating are requested by the state to create an improvement plan. Once the plan is approved by the board, the improvement plans are then sent to the state’s Department of Education.

“We've been working really closely with them, they've worked closely with our leadership teams and their schools, including their school improvement councils, to really think about some quick wins and also some streaks that they can leverage as well as those areas of improvement that they need to target with these plans,” Gaskins said “They will be monitoring these plans every 30 days and so they have selected some strategies that will be really easy to monitor as they focus on the required improvements.”

“The Instructional Services team has been working with them and we have committed resources, human resources from the instructional team who will also be working closely with all three of these schools as they implement the plan,” she added.

During the Dec. 12 meeting, the principal for each school provided some insight to the board and those in attendance on how they will address their rating and improve their school’s performance.

Stephen Deyo, principal for Gilbert Elementary, said the school’s improvement plan will begin at the start of the new year and be in effect until June. Deyo said the areas the elementary hopes to improve are English. math and science instruction.

When it comes to the English portion, Deyo said the school will be working on improving students' foundational reading skills, regardless of grade level, and teachers, support teachers, administrators and other staff will be trained in letters, which is a “journey” that helps educators understand how students learn to read and write.

“Our teachers are on board with this, [and are] super excited about it,” Deyo said. “They're already using the knowledge that they've gained from it so far since we started to improve instructional practices and our building and focus and on the process of reading acquisition.”

Deyo said that they have been using blocks, fraction tiles, geometric shapes, white boards and other materials as a way to allow students to manipulate items and move throughout the lesson to improve their understanding and performance in math.

“Our teachers are going to continue to provide a professional development that is responsive again to student needs by analyzing individual data and that student data along with class data,” the principal said.

Pelion High Principal Sean Bishton, who was hired as principal in March last year, shared that his school's improvement plan started in August, with the first part of the plan being in effect until the end of this month. In the new year, Bishton will tackle the second part of the school’s improvement plan, which will be in effect from January to June.

“We're very proud of our school and obviously we have a lot of work to do,” he said.

The plan last fall focused on increasing effectiveness of tier one instruction, particularly the rigor of instruction and student engagement. The school will also focus on empowering all faculty and staff to be actively involved in the improvement process with FOCUS teams and a data analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats impacting the school in reaching its goals. The principal added that they will also be tracking systems for supporting student success and parent communication.

According to Bishton, the portion of the plan that begins at the start of the new year is focused on evaluating student schedules, their advisory experiences and improving efforts targeted at college and career readiness.

He added that for the 2024-2025 school year they will focus on tier two interventions and the calibration of grading and assessment.

The plan that Principal Nicholas Pearson made for White Knoll High School went into effect in December and will remain in effect until June 2024.

A majority of White Knoll’s improvement plan is centered around the school’s graduation rate and college and career readiness. Pearson stated that to help improve the school’s graduation rate, they will restructure the processes for enrollment and withdrawal, deploy human resources to support students in credit recovery and address students with attendance concerns.

To ensure students remain on track to graduate, Pearson shared that the schools will conduct  data analysis in addition to providing incentives, implementing new standards and communicating with parents regarding student progress.

When it comes to increasing the number of students who are college and career ready, Pearson said the school is targeting increased access to SC Career Readiness practice material, the creation of additional avenues for work-based learning experiences, and opening Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery testing to all 11th and 12th grade students who are not yet college and career ready.