Case study on Broad River Elementary

School District: Beaufort County, South Carolina

Country: USA

Status: Public

IB Programme(s): PYP (since 2000)

The school and its students

Broad River Elementary School is located in the Sea Islands of South Carolina, an area of natural beauty midway between Charleston and Savannah in the USA. Many of the school’s students come from relatively deprived backgrounds and the school receives poverty funding for some 80 per cent of its students. Close on 50 per cent of Broad River students are eligible for free lunches with an additional 15 per cent eligible for reduced lunch payments. There are 434 students enrolled at the school from birth to Grade 5, the former in some instances being the children of students still enrolled in local high schools. There is an annual rate of turnover in the student body of some 56 per cent. The school is mixed equally between students of Afro-American origin and those of no colour, with some 5 per cent of the school population being Hispanic. In short, it’s the kind of school that canny insiders of the educational world describe as challenging.

Why choose an IB programme?

How and why did a school like Broad River Elementary become involved with the IB? To answer to that question one need look no further than the formidable figure of Dr Melissa Shepherd, now Director of Grants Implementation for Beaufort County School District but in the late 1990s the dynamic school head of Broad River Elementary. It was at that time that she attended an International Schools Curriculum Project (ISCP) workshop held at Maastricht in the Netherlands, returning to her school, in the words of Broad River Elementary’s current PYP co-ordinator, Selma Lovett,  “with just enough knowledge of this new curriculum model to be dangerous.” In 1997, the International Schools Curriculum Project came under the wing of the IB and three years later Broad River Elementary had been authorised to teach what has since been known as the Primary Years Programme. Ms Shepherd had seen and understood enough to convince her that this innovative curriculum would have a transforming effect on the life of her school and its community.

Changes in the school

That transformation was slow and gradual. Both staff and parents needed to be persuaded that what was perceived to be an elite programme could possibly be relevant to them. The benefits of a new programme were difficult to monitor in a school with such a high annual turnover of students. Gradually, however, a determined school principal gained the trust of her community. Indeed, community involvement is a core value of the PYP.  An article in the November 2004 issue of IB World, jointly written by members of the Broad River Elementary School community, publicised the results of incremental change at the school. A student discussion in Years 1 and 2 resulted not only in a tidier classroom but also in a local anti-litter drive, with slogans painted on the school windows for the benefit of passing motorists. In Years 4 and 5, some 300 “bags of life” were compiled and distributed to vulnerable members of the local elderly community. Students from Kindergarten to Year 5 worked with their art teacher to bring colour to their local community displaying their artwork in local business premises and in public buildings. Another class was involved in the restoration of a local trail and its adjacent habitats. These worthy activities all reflect a deeper engagement with the core values of the PYP, as students reflect on their place in the multiple communities of classroom, school, locality, and the wider world.

The school now

With Dr Shepherd now active at a district level, there is every prospect of the PYP being implemented throughout Beaufort County. From her first encounter with the ISCP, she was convinced of its value as an all-embracing school philosophy rather than being a mere set of discrete courses. She determined to persuade her colleagues in particular and the wider school community in general that the students of Broad River Elementary School deserved to be exposed the best in international practice. She stresses the need for regular involvement in the IB programme of teacher training workshops to enable teachers to make what for many is a challenging paradigm shift. Indeed, she herself now trains the trainers! As the years of participation in the PYP roll by, she sees how it serves to draw the entire school community together creating shared pride in achievement. At a more concrete level, the teaching of Spanish as a second language at elementary level has required the recruitment of specialist teachers, a development supported by the district authorities. From her current vantage-point, Dr Shepherd is exhilarated at the prospects for IB curriculum continuity in Beaufort County school district. Over the next five years she expects another five elementary schools in Beaufort County to join the PYP. Already, three out of four of the district high schools offer the Diploma Programme and active consideration is being given to district participation in the MYP.