• Category 2

    Selected in 2013

  • Grades: pre k - 5
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 18,688
    Student Enrollment: 630
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 46%
    White/Caucasian: 46%
    Hispanic: 7%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:23
    % Reduced Lunch: 86.3%
    % ELL Learners: 7%
    Founded: 2002
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Penny Foye
  • CONTACT:
    108 North Clemson Circle
    Conway, SC 29526
    843-365-2512
    pfoye@horrycountyschools.net
Homewood Elementary
Conway, SC
During collaborative planning, we analyze each students' MAP score and set their goals. We make our students aware of their goals. We challenge our students to meet or exceed their goal, and our students love to rise up to a good challenge! They share in our school-wide accountability.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
The most successful activity our school has initiated to strengthen ties to our community has been our Eagle Express community outings. Many children spend Saturday mornings watching cartoons. This is not always the case for the children at Homewood Elementary School. On select Saturday mornings, our students wait eagerly for the sound of their teachers' arrival into their neighborhood. We have a team of dedicated Homewood educators who board a school bus to visit children and their parents in their community. We pass out books and we address concerns that our parents may have about reading and math. The African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child" resonates more clearly with parents when they see a village of educators come to their neighborhood to show how much they value home/school relationships. This event has truly strengthened our family ties! Many of our parents appreciate the fact that we value their input, and we are willing to meet them on common grounds.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
I think the program that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing the achievement gaps has been our goal-oriented focus. We worked as a team to set MAP goals for our students in 2nd-5th grades and set school-wide SMART goals. During collaborative planning, we analyze each students' MAP score and set their goals. We make our students aware of their goals. We challenge our students to meet or exceed their goal, and our students love to rise up to a good challenge! They share in our school-wide accountability. As of result of this school-wide focus on goal-setting, we were able to earn an A for improvement on our 2012 ESEA report. Almost all our sub-groups showed improvement. We believe our excitement about our students reaching or passing their goals helped motivate them to press harder to reach our school-wide goals. We maintained this same friendly air of competition per grade level and celebrated the efforts of all our students.
Explain how Title I funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
Our Title I Committee members meet at least two times per year to monitor the progress of our students. We use our funds to provide support in the areas of weakness as identified in the data. Based upon our most recent and trend data, we have hired a reading interventionist to provide TIER II reading support for students in 2nd-5th grades. Our interventionist uses the PASSPORT reading program to meet the needs of our struggling readers. These students are progress-monitored every ten days for growth. Additionally, our team decided to use some of our funds to hire an Elementary Curriculum Coach for our teachers in grades 3rd-5th grades. Our curriculum coach provides on-going professional development to our teachers on reading, common core state standards, and effective instructional strategies. As a result of our investment in our curriculum coach and our reading interventionists, our teachers have grown professionally, and our students' reading scores are up considerably.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
The critical professional development activity that we use to improve teaching and student learning is routine classroom walk-throughs. As an administrator, I have learned to monitor what you expect your team to produce and provide effective feedback for sustaining results. We have a set scheduled walk-through visits for all of our teachers. My core leadership team members and I will conduct classroom walk-throughs and look for patterns in instruction. We then take the data that are collected and provide feedback to our teachers about what's working well, and then we provide recommendations for additional growth. We schedule walk-through visits with our professional consultants who visit our school. Our teachers have received on-going professional development from our Every Day Math Consultant and our CORE reading consultant. Their feedback from their observations have been instrumental in helping our our entire team grow into a stronger Professional Learning Community.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
We use our data to plan instruction at our school each day. Our data are our focal point for common planning and for school-wide decisions about student achievement. We administer MAP in grades 2nd-5th grades three times per year. All students who score below the 25th% on MAP, are provided TIER II reading support using our PASSPORT reading intervention program. These students are progress monitored every ten days. We use our MAP data to plan for differentiated instruction during small group reading and math times. Our teachers work with our curriculum coach to devise lesson plans to target each students' identified need. Next, we progress monitor our students' reading progress in our primary grades using DIBELS. We provide reading intervention for all primary students who are identified as intensive, strategic, and benchmark on DIBELS. We constantly monitor all our students' assessments in our data room, as well as require our teachers to maintain staff and student data notebooks.
Stats
  • Category 2

    Selected in 2013

  • Grades: pre k - 5
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 18,688
    Student Enrollment: 630
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 46%
    White/Caucasian: 46%
    Hispanic: 7%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:23
    % Reduced Lunch: 86.3%
    % ELL Learners: 7%
    Founded: 2002
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Penny Foye
  • CONTACT:
    108 North Clemson Circle
    Conway, SC 29526
    843-365-2512
    pfoye@horrycountyschools.net