Student Achievement, Including Sub-groups (Our targeted subgroup was male readers.)
The district spring 2021 SC Ready ELA Reading Assessment provided baseline student achievement data for our students in grades 6-8 when we opened as the 6th middle school. At that time, the number of female students who performed at the proficient level or above was 72.7% compared to 61.6% of our male students. This was a *gap of 11.1%. FCMS Performance Goal Area 2 is to decrease the percentage of male students who do not score at the proficiency level by 1% each year. For the 21-22 school year, we projected the gap to be reduced from 11.1% to 10.1%. The actual reported difference was 9.2%. Our targeted action steps were successful. After implementing the additional strategies, we are excited to report that the gap between our females and males was reduced to 2.3% at the end of the 2022-2023 school year - a gap closure of almost 7%! We are ahead of our achievement goal. We hope to have a 2% gap or less in this year's scores.
*Gap is defined as the difference in percentage of males versus females scoring at the meets or exceeds level on the identified SC Ready ELA (Reading) assessment.
Teaching/Administrator Quality
The 2022-2023 SCDE Teacher Survey data indicated that 96.1% (up from 91.8%) of FCMS teachers were satisfied with working conditions. FCMS Performance Goal Area 1 is to increase teacher satisfaction related to working conditions each year reaching 100% by 2025-2026. Strategies include creating opportunities for Collaborative Colleague visits, implementing Workshop Wednesdays for in house PD based on staff and school needs, celebrating staff with Teacher of the Month votes, sharing Thankful Thursday messages, and using a Coyote Ticket system to recognize our staff for various actions.
School Climate
The 2022-2023 SCDE Survey indicated 98.1% (up from 96%) of our teachers were satisfied with the social and physical environment along with 90.2% (up from 77%) of our parents. Students reported their level of satisfaction with the cleanliness of the bathrooms beginning with the 2020-2021 survey. At the end of the 22-23 school year, 68.4% (up from 55.3%) of our students reported being satisfied with the cleanliness of the bathrooms. By the 2025-2026 school year, we aim for these numbers to be 100% of our teachers, 94.4% of our parents, and 79% of our students.
Strategies include implementing activities that celebrate all students and their cultures, developing a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee to plan multicultural events/activities, creation of a welcome to FCMS video, hosting newcomer's breakfasts, developing and implementing quieter hallway habits, selecting student leaders (Coyote Council) to examine our student survey data and develop an action plan aimed to improve student perception of a safe, clean, and healthy school environment, developing and implementing an in-house student and parent communications survey related to school climate and safety, linking Character Strong with our Students of the Month and Teacher recognition, celebrating perfect attendance for students, implementing tier 2 of Character Strong, and evaluating our Character Strong program.
