We're off to a great start with 360 Academy for the 2025-2026 school year. Our students seem most appreciative of the attention and time they receive from their teachers on a personalized need level and of the new opportunity we have when we merge all five middle schools together at the Pickens County Career and Technology Center for in-person learning. Though much of our time this past week was spent i-Ready testing, it was a good time to meet friends from our home middle schools. I got the chance to visit with students at 3 sites and even spent some time at recess with our DMS and PMS students.
We'll have i-Ready results to send home soon! We are so proud of where our students are starting this year! We can't wait for you to see how they grow in this program when instruction and learning is personalized for students!
September holds three in-person opportunities. We are back at the Career Center on September 4, and we have another in-person week in schools around the middle of the month. We have our yearly visit with the Kimberly Hampton Memorial Library on September 26. What an opportunity this experience provides students to learn that our community libraries are about much more than books!
Parents, you're doing a tremendous job coaching your students to be the ones who own their learning. We're starting much stronger this year because of your efforts to put your child in control of communication with their teachers. They're very much ahead of where we were at this time last year. Thank you for continuing to encourage that independence!
We're looking forward to a great month ahead!
Sincerely,
Lori Gwinn
Director of Virtual Learning in The School District of Pickens County