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About Us

Port Royal Elementary School is nestled in the heart of the town of Port Royal. We are in walking distance of historical landmarks, community resources, local businesses, and natural lowcountry habitats including the cypress wetlands and the Sands Beach. Students take advantage of these learning opportunities through experience-based inquiry projects.

Port Royal Elementary is South Carolina's second-oldest operating school.

It first opened in 1911 as a two-room, two-story schoolhouse.  Over the years, our building has enjoyed many renovations, expansions, and technology upgrades.  Today, all students in grades PK through 5 have access to a personal technology device (PK-1st have iPads while grades 2-5 have tablets).

The school community is made up of families with diverse backgrounds and a wide range of incomes. The Town of Port Royal supports strong military connections, rental property and homeowners.   Parental involvement and participation at family events and community activities is strong; PRES parents care deeply about their children’s learning and they are very supportive of our efforts. The Port Royal Elementary community fosters a culture of caring, and the nurturing, family-like climate is evident as soon as you enter our school. Faculty and staff members know every child and family, and they go to great lengths to help and support one another.

A laser-like focus on teaching and learning this year has resulted in strong positive growth on MAP (Measure of Academic Progress) and the state PASS assessment.  Daily instruction is explicit, engaging, based on South Carolina Curriculum Standards and infused with instructional technology tools. PRES is committed to implementation of the District’s Balanced Literacy Program and the Everyday Math curriculum, supported by weekly professional development meetings with the Literacy and/or Math Coach.

Clear demand for a proactive, preventive school-wide behavior plan resulted in our Staying on Course program which has provided high expectations and consistent consequences for student choices this year. Behavioral disruptions have decreased tremendously, greater opportunities for teaching and learning are occurring, and more students are remaining in the classroom for instruction. To promote positive student behavior and responsibility for learning, we will be developing a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program and a more explicit character education program this year. We continue to work to improve our communication within the school and our responsiveness to students’ families.

The number of newly identified gifted and talented students has increased slightly this year, and our school-wide Response to Intervention (RTI) model has resulted in more students being appropriately identified for special instructional services. We will continue to use targeted classroom interventions as well as observation and data collection to ensure student progress. More research-based strategies are being studied through faculty book studies and further professional development in the analysis and use of data to make good instructional decisions is on-going. Very high expectations for learning by children and by adults continue; we believe that working as a cohesive unit we will increase the achievement of every child in the Port Royal Elementary Family, allowing each to reach his/her personal potential.

Four Port Royal Elementary students wearing CREW shirts