SCDE 2023 Report Cards released

PICKENS COUNTY — The South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) has released their 2022-2023 School Report cards, showing every school in the School District of Pickens County scoring “Average” or better ratings.

The Report Cards, available at www.screportcards.com, reflect data elements and student performance information from the 2022-23 school year, according to SCDE.

The South Carolina Report Card measures the 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.

Of the 22 SDPC schools measured, eight were rated Excellent, eight were rated Good and six were rated Average, according to the report. No SDPC schools were rated Below Average or Unsatisfactory.

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 was the only high school rated Excellent; Easley, Liberty and Pickens High Schools were rated “Average.”

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.