Batesburg-Leesville Primary School

Why Batesburg-Leesville Primary School was nominated

For the last 4 years, Batesburg-Leesville Elementary School has been on a journey to grow and sustain a personalized learning system. With a focus on an instructional shift to a more student-centered environment, flexible seating, choice boards, and student interests were targeted strategies. With the COVID pandemic in 2020, BLPS soon realized they would need to dig deeper into the development and implementation of learning pathways to support all learners. Concerned about learning loss when virtual school was the only option, teachers engaged in professional collaboration to address those learning gaps. Prioritizing standards in ELA and Mathematics was a first step in the construction of an equitable viable Learning Continuum, where progressions of learning and readiness assessments were developed for the standards. As teachers continued to collaborate in both grade level and vertical teams, it was clear the curriculum work they had done served a larger purpose than addressing learning gaps – it had in fact provided an opportunity to foster agency in all learners! Date tracking and goal setting soon belonged to the 4- and 5-year-old kindergartners, first and second graders, and progress monitoring and celebrations of learning soon followed, where the outcome was student ownership of the learning! Generative curriculum, where the youngest of learners bring ideas to school about what they want to learn taps into curiosity and has made room for projects that are truly learner-centered at BLPS. The school’s personalized learning footprint is strong and has informed district systems shifts across the K-12 system.