A Note from Carol 

As someone who spent 32 years as an educator, I know students enrich our lives in ways we never thought possible. For me, Jeff S is the student who touched my heart and I knew I had to advocate for him. He walked into class and said, “I’ll be a troublemaker.” After class, I asked him what it would take for him to be successful. He told me, “Put my desk right next to yours; if I’m in the back, I’ll misbehave.” Sometimes the young man didn’t have the best hygiene, but he sat up front and was learning. One day he overheard me talking about changing the carpet in our mobile home with George. He volunteered to help. I told him, “No thanks.” But, at 6 PM that evening he showed up to help George. It’s a lesson I will never forget--never give up on a student.  

If you care about Charleston County students, please consider supporting my campaign with a DONATION or as a VOLUNTEER. Thank you.

Policy

Schools should offer a full and rich curriculum for all children; it includes language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, fine arts, technology, physical education, athletics, and foreign languages. The student-centered curriculum and its instruction should encourage creativity and critical thinking. Children should have many ways to learn and demonstrate their learning through projects and activities related to the curriculum. Our neighborhood schools should be adequately staffed with resources to achieve excellence. Early childhood education is critical for students and essential to closing the achievement gap for under-resourced children. Middle and high school students need access to college-career opportunities and apprenticeships to promote their future careers. Assessment of students should be formative and ongoing to inform teaching and learning. Too many high-stakes standardized tests take away instructional time and often unfairly measure students' and schools’ accomplishments. Teachers and schools should be evaluated by professionals, not unreliable test scores. Care must also be taken to keep students’ information confidential.

The most important things we can do as teachers to inspire and motivate students are:

·      Get to know students and their unique interests, talents, and curiosities.

·      Provide opportunities for them to develop positive, respectful, and meaningful relationships with their teacher and fellow classmates. 

·      Engage students in relevant learning experiences as they pursue their academic and special area assignments. 

·      Allow students to learn in whole class lessons as well as opportunities to work independently, think critically, solve problems, explore their community, and assume leadership roles in authentic ways.

·      Set goals together, give feedback in ways that encourage a student to stay engaged in learning; and celebrate success.   

·      Share our love of learning and students are more likely to catch our enthusiasm.  

I welcome your thoughts, ideas, and questions. Please visit our Facebook page to join the discussion.