State Releases School Report Cards
Improving school performance begins with understanding the conditions, successes, and challenges of each school. South Carolina is required by federal and state law to create annual report cards for the public with key data about how students and schools are doing. The South Carolina School Report Cards provide information to build that understanding. The South Carolina Department of Education released its 2022-2023 School Report cards on Oct. 10, 2023, showing every school in the School District of Pickens County scoring “Average” or better ratings.
The South Carolina Report Card measures progress of schools toward the goals of the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. These goals include Academic Success, Preparing for Success, Multi-Lingual Learner Growth, School Climate, Graduation Rate, and producing graduates that are College and/or Career Ready.
The School Report Cards, which are based on South Carolina’s education accountability system, are required for all elementary, middle, and high schools which receive overall ratings based on a 100-point scale. The report card assigns ratings of Excellent, Good, Average, Below Average, and Unsatisfactory.
Each school will receive an overall rating and each rated indicator will receive a separate rating for each indicator.
Of the 22 SDPC schools measured, eight were rated Excellent, eight were rated Good, and six were rated Average. No SDPC schools were rated Below Average or Unsatisfactory.
Schools with EXCELLENT Rating | 8 |
Schools with GOOD Rating | 8 |
Schools with AVERAGE Rating | 6 |
Schools with BELOW AVERAGE Rating | 0 |
Schools with UNSATISFACTORY Rating | 0 |
An Excellent rating is defined as school performance that substantially exceeds the criteria to ensure all students meet the Profile of a South Carolina Graduate. District schools at the elementary level that received this rating are Central Academy Of The Arts, East End, Hagood, McKissick Academy Of Science And Technology, and Six Mile. Schools rated Excellent at the middle school level were Dacusville Middle and R.C. Edwards. D.W. Daniel High School also received this top rating.
A Good rating is defined as school performance that exceeds the criteria to ensure all students meet the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. District schools that received this rating are Ambler Elementary, Clemson Elementary, Crosswell Elementary, Dacusville Elementary, Forest Acres Elementary, Liberty Elementary, Pickens Elementary, and R.H. Gettys Middle.
SDPC’s report card reflects that 72.5% percent of Pickens County high school seniors were “College- or Career-Ready,” meaning they are prepared for college or careers after graduation. The graduation rate in the report card is measured by the percentage of students who complete high school “on time” and earn a diploma in four years. SDPC’s graduation rate for the class of 2023 reflects 84.5% of students completing “on time”.
“SC School Report Cards provide tremendous feedback to us in several different areas,” said Dr. Danny Merck, SDPC Superintendent. “We have always maintained a long-run approach instead of reacting to one quarter, one semester, or one year of data. However, we acknowledge so many areas of positive academic performance across the school district. Along with the areas of positive gains, we accept the challenge of improving as well. We remain extremely grateful for the tremendous work in each of our schools. We continue to be committed to a teachable attitude and continuous improvement, no matter what.
We are especially excited to celebrate seven schools that improved their ratings in the past year: Ambler Elementary, Central Academy of the Arts, East End Elementary, Hagood Elementary, Liberty Elementary, McKissick Academy of Science and Technology, and Six Mile Elementary.”
A school-by-school listing of overall report card scores is below. School report cards can be reviewed in detail at screportcards.com.
