Partnership Development

Simpsonville Elementary School at Morton Place envisions our families, staff, and community working together to help our children succeed. This is a shared responsibility. We are committed to exploring and developing new strategies for our community, which will help us and our children meet the challenges of a fast-paced, ever-changing world.

Present Role of Our Parent Community

Each August, all parents and students may attend Back-to-School Night at which time they receive information regarding our PTA and ways in which they can become involved in their child’s classroom.

Every month the school newsletter, Seal-O-Gram is sent to each home.  The newsletter contains information regarding all aspects of the current school program and activities, including a monthly calendar of school events.

Parent volunteers are encouraged to play a vital role in the day-to-day functioning of the school.  Parents perform a wide variety of tasks such as fundraising, supporting classroom teachers, chaperoning field trips, helping in the office, preparing the newsletter, etc.  Our parent involvement supports fundraisers for playground equipment, mini-grants, library and classroom supplies.  Thanks to our parents support, in the past we purchased two new copiers for our school.

Even with these efforts, however, the majority of our parents do not become involved in the school.  This is a problem, along with shrinking budgets, changing demographics, and the many different levels of school readiness among our students as evidenced in our demographic data and student achievement scores.  It is also clear that we must develop new strategies for engaging the parent and community support we know is essential for our students’ success.  In addition, beyond engaging our parent community, we need to explore partnerships with churches and civic groups.

Recognizing that parental involvement is one of the greatest contributors to student success in school, our staff decided to convene a team to develop strategies for increased parent involvement.  We have determined, given our community’s demographic profile that we need to provide some well-placed support for our students’ families, so that they, in turn can support their children’s education. Ultimately, we would like to have a clearly articulated partnership structure for the school, so that our partners' efforts directly impact our students' success in school and in life.

We have developed a partnership plan, as a part of our comprehensive school wide improvement plan, to ensure that our partners have the opportunity to contribute to and benefit from these endeavors. It is our belief that our students have much to give to, as well as learn from, their community. We will continue to look for ways to develop two-way partnerships.

Our current partnerships are described below.

·      Caterpillar – Jr. Achievement   

·      Bethlehem Baptist Church

·      HHS Service Learning & Teacher Cadets

·      Bryson Middle 8^th Grade writers

·      Big Brothers, Big Sisters

·      Wal*Mart

·      Cryovac

·      Upstate Women’s Club

·      Art Haven

·      Hedrick Rehabilitation

·      B. J.’s  Wholesale

·      PLUS, Inc.

·      Bonnie Brae Golf Club

·      USC – Upstate

·      Great Clips

·      McDonald’s

·      Sonic