Florence 1 Schools performs well on new SCDE school report cards

According to recent data, 60 percent of the schools in Florence 1 Schools received either a Good or Excellent rating on their school report card from the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE).

Wallace Gregg Elementary earned a Good rating, the first in over twenty years. Carver Elementary School and Dewey L. Carter Elementary School each jumped two categories from an Average rating last school year to achieve an Excellent rating.  

“I am very proud of the students and staff at Carver,” said Principal Josie Little. “We worked extremely hard last year to move our students academically, and we received excellent results. I am very thankful and appreciative of the teamwork displayed by our Carver Bears. We are excited to continue to build academic excellence at Carver.” 

All three of the district’s high schools received a rating of Good. On the report cards, schools can earn 100 combined points from categories such as Academic Achievement, Student Progress and School Climate. Sneed Middle School, which received a Below Average last school year, increased its numerical rating by 11 points to earn an Average this school leaving no schools in Florence 1 in the Below Average category on the state report cards. Southside Middle School and Williams Middle School also received an Average rating, while Moore Middle School received a Good.

Grad Rate

For the fourth year in a row, Florence 1’s graduation rate is both higher than the state and above 90 percent. Florence 1 maintained a 93 percent grad rate while the state stayed at 85 percent. By comparison, Florence 1’s graduation rate in the 2018-2019 school year, the year prior to COVID, was just 83.7 percent.

Florence 1’s graduation rate remains among the top six school districts in South Carolina, less than three points away from the graduation rates for Fort Mill School District and Clover School District, two of the highest-performing districts in the state.

Shemia Yearwood, Executive Director of Assessments and Accountability, said that the district is continuously making improvements and that the attention to detail is paying off. 

“School leadership teams have been disaggregating each part of their report card throughout the school year to address areas of improvement to support our students, parents, and teachers better,” Yearwood said. “I have seen firsthand how the data is influencing what they are doing each day in their buildings. Our district and school report cards, as well as the district’s graduation rate, is proof that our data-driven approach is working.”

School Climate

In the school report card’s climate category, Florence scored higher than the State and several larger school districts such as Richland 2, Greenville County School District and Charleston County School District. School climate data is compiled from student and teacher surveys on safety, working conditions, instructional focus, and the social-physical environment of schools. Florence 1’s overall rating was 7.23 out of a possible 10, compared to the State’s 6.88.

“I am incredibly proud of this year’s report cards from the state,” said Florence 1 Schools Superintendent Richard O’Malley. “We are seeing growth in all of our schools and that is because our leaders are taking the data from the state and translating that into meaningful instructional decisions. We no longer have any schools with a Below Average or Unsatisfactory rating and I believe we will continue to see the list of schools receiving an Excellent rating grow each year.”