Ebinport Elementary council among 10 named to S.C. honor roll

Ebinport Elementary School has reached out to students and the community with peer mentoring, Little Free Libraries and a move to foster students’ social and emotional learning.

Ebinport’s School Improvement Council, which was at the heart of those initiatives and others, is one of 10 such panels honored by the state School Improvement Council for efforts to foster civic engagement.

“We hope that sharing our success will encourage more parents, staff and community members to get involved in the SICs across the district,” said Kelly Scott, chair of the Ebinport council.

The Ebinport council has been named to the South Carolina 2016 School Improvement County Honor Roll. It is now in the running for the state’s annual Dick and Tunky Riley Award for School Improvement Council Excellence.

The award, named for the former U.S. Secretary of Education and S.C. governor and his late wife, was created in 2002 to recognize contributions by more than 1,100 local SICs and their nearly 14,000 members.

Scott said the Ebinport council has fostered student peer mentoring, in which a fourth- or fifth-grade students partner with a kindergarten students to work on reading and the alphabet.

“They sit with them every morning, and help them read,” she said. “You have the fourth- or fifth-grader doing the leadership thing and listening.”

SIC member Kelly Sebastian started the school’s elaborate raised bed gardens, which have been used in instruction, Scott said. The garden concept has also been shared with other schools and Winthrop University students, she said.

The SIC also created a social and emotional learning program used by several teachers last year. Teachers assessed students in areas such as confidence, responsibility and relationships and worked with their parents.

This year, Scott said, the SIC plans to host parent workshops on social and emotional learning to show parents how they can work with their children at home.

Scott also said the council sponsored Little Free Libraries in some neighborhoods where they were told “the kids don’t have access to books outside of school.”

The other nine School Improvement Councils named to the state 2016 SIC Honor Roll are:

▪  Bluffton Middle, Beaufort County

▪  Denmark-Olar High, Denmark-Olar School District Two, Bamberg County

▪  H.E. McCracken Middle, Beaufort County

▪  Jennie Moore Elementary, Charleston County

▪  Laing Middle School of Science and Technology, Charleston County

▪  Meadowfield Elementary, Richland School District One

▪ Port Royal Elementary, Beaufort County

▪  South Florence High, Florence Public School District One

▪  St. James High, Horry County Schools

The 10 councils “demonstrated hard work and commitment to supporting the success of their schools,” said Michael Guarino, chair of the SC-SIC Board of Trustees.

Five finalists from the 2016 SIC Honor Roll will be selected next month, and one will be announced as the winner of the annual Riley Award for SIC Excellence in late March.

School Improvement Councils, composed of school parents, teachers and community members, were established in state law nearly 40 years ago.

The S.C. School Improvement Council provides training, technical assistance and other resources for local councils in each of the state’s kindergarten to 12th-grade public schools.

This story was originally published January 14, 2016 at 7:20 PM with the headline "Ebinport Elementary council among 10 named to S.C. honor roll."