Starr-Iva Middle School

We are SO proud of our Crescent Marching Band! This past Saturday, they competed at Easley High School against 15 bands and came home with some incredible hardware! 🥇 1st Place in their division 🏆 Grand Champions of the Lower Division Competition And this one is extra special: this is a FIRST for Crescent! With so many of our current SIMS students marching alongside our Crescent students, we couldn’t be prouder to celebrate this huge accomplishment! Congratulations to Mr. Wilcox and all of our band kiddos! Your hard work, countless hours of practice, and dedication are paying off in a BIG way!

Congratulations to our September Staff Spotlight: Misty Stamey! Her thoughtfulness, positivity, leadership, and friendship make SIMS a better place every day!

At Starr-Iva Middle, technology has a purpose! 💻📚

Teachers already work hard to make sure technology is used intentionally when it truly enhances student learning. Tech-Free Week gave everyone a chance to Restart. Refresh. & Reconnect.

For one week, students and teachers traded a little screen time for more paper and pencil, books, conversation, collaboration, and some good old-fashioned instruction. ✏️📖

🎉 Club Day was a SUCCESS at SIMS! 🎉 Last Friday, our students had the chance to step outside of their normal routine, connect with others, and spend time doing something they enjoy during our Club Day! From creating and competing to learning, laughing, and trying something new, there was a little something for everyone. ❤️ We loved seeing our students build relationships with classmates and teachers around shared interests and just have FUN together! The best parts of middle school may just happen beyond the classroom. A HUGE thank you to our teachers and staff who planned, organized, led, and ACED clubs to make the day such a success!

Guidance lessons on creativity and friendship had Mr. Jordan breaking out the guitar! 🎸 Our core values have been an excellent way to share, connect, and work together each month. We love seeing our students grow through these meaningful lessons and experiences!

Some of our future Crescent FFA members participated in an FFA 101 workshop presented by our very own State FFA President Jabe Holtzclaw and State FFA Vice President Brooklyn Iseli!

The workshop focused on the FFA mission of premier leadership, personal growth, and career success as students prepare to become future Crescent FFA members. We’re excited to see how these students grow and lead! 💙💛

You know what’s exciting?! 🍩🎉 Donuts and extra recess for being the grade level that showed the MOST academic achievement on SC READY! Our 8th graders got to celebrate their hard work with Mr. Lollis, and they earned it! During the celebration, students also got the scoop on their upcoming 8th grade field trip and the expectations that will help them earn their spot. Attendance matters. Behavior matters. Grades matter. And the choices they make throughout the year matter! We love celebrating where our students have been while also challenging them to keep pushing toward where they’re going.

Week 7 of Restart is here! Happy Reading!

Help us welcome another addition to the 2026-2027 #A3TeachingTeam, Mr. Josh Wade! 🍎💛🎉

Mr. Wade is joining Starr-Iva Middle, where he is teaching Introduction to Business! 💻📊

A Fort Mill native, Josh brings more than 14 years of experience teaching and coaching at the high school level. He is also a U.S. Army veteran who completed two tours in Afghanistan before returning home, earning his degree from Anderson University, and beginning his career in education. He spent more than a decade coaching football at BHP and is excited for this new opportunity to teach and coach at the middle school level while spending more time with his wife, Lindsey, and their boys. 🇺🇸

New this year, Introduction to Business will help our middle school students become more confident, efficient, and safe users of technology. Students will develop practical skills with word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and other digital tools while learning about digital citizenship, internet safety, problem-solving, and critical thinking.

We are excited to expand these opportunities for our students and thrilled to welcome Mr. Wade to Anderson 3! 🐯💛

English I students spent some time in the library with Mrs. Russell learning all about research! 📚 Students learned how to identify credible sources, properly cite their research, and find reliable information using the resources available in our library. Now they’re putting those skills to work as they research and prepare for their upcoming Wax Museum! We can’t wait to see their research come to life! 👏

Students aren’t the only ones being challenged to think deeply, collaborate, and problem-solve at SIMS! 💡 Last week, our teachers spent time digging into their gradebooks and summative assessments: not just looking at the grades, but asking what the data actually tells us about student learning. Teachers worked together to identify patterns, determine who has mastered the content and who may need reteaching, analyze individual assessment questions, and evaluate whether their assessments truly reflect the level of thinking we expect from our students. At SIMS, we believe grades should tell the truth about what students know and can do. That means our teachers have to be learners, too, reflecting on instruction, studying the evidence, collaborating with one another, and making adjustments based on what our students need next. We ask our students to learn, grow, and get better every day. We expect the same of ourselves.

We were SO excited to welcome Rowan and Mrs. Dicce back to school last week! Everyone at SIMS is feeling extra blessed and grateful for this sweet miracle. Of course, a special return called for a special welcome! 🦖🦕 We had a little dino fun waiting for Rowan when he hopped off the bus Monday afternoon! Ps: Mr. Marvin and his costumes are sure to bring a smile to everyone's face around here!

And if you’ve noticed our lunchroom getting a little louder lately… there’s a good reason! 😊 We placed conversation cards on our lunch tables to challenge students to put down the distractions, talk to someone around them, and learn a little more about one another in honor of our core value for the month: friendship. The result? More talking. More laughing. More connecting. And yes, a much louder lunchroom! It may be loud, but those conversations are music to our ears. ❤️

SIMS is SUPER proud of 8th grader Savannah Sanders, who earned a spot in the first violin section of the Anderson County All-County Orchestra!

What an awesome accomplishment and a reflection of Savannah’s hard work and talent! Way to go, Savannah! 👏🎶

📚 TECH-FREE WEEK at SIMS! ✏️ This week, we pressed pause on the screens and got back to learning through doing, talking, reading, writing, creating, and problem-solving together! Student jokes aside, our teachers and students made the most of it! Students extended an M&M percent lab by learning to use compasses and protractors, measuring angles, creating frequency charts, determining scale factors, and building pie charts by hand. There was plenty of erasing and plenty of learning along the way! Students explored how scientific thinking is constantly revised as new knowledge is discovered. After piecing together a puzzle, they were given “new data” and had to rethink how that information fit with what they already knew. Students took a deep dive into fiction books, analyzing how authors develop plot and characters through word choice and dialogue. Others tackled tech-free word-part study, working together, talking through their thinking, and learning from one another instead of from a screen. One class wrapped up its learning with a summative assessment in the form of a postcard from an ancient traveler visiting Mesopotamia. Students had a few minutes as a bell ringer to finish their postcards and demonstrate what they learned in a creative, meaningful way. Tech-Free Week wasn’t about doing less, it was about engaging differently. More conversation. More collaboration. More productive struggle. More hands-on learning. More opportunities to think. Sometimes pressing pause helps us be a little more present.

Congrats to these kiddos for receiving positive referrals this month. They are great friends and are doing GREAT things at SIMS! ❤️

2026-2027 Yearbook Info

It's Week SIX! Happy Reading!

It's Week Five; Happy reading!