Summary:
Zip code 19803 is home to a single public high school, Brandywine High School, which serves grades 9-12 and is part of the highly-rated Brandywine School District.
For parents considering this area, Brandywine High School offers a solid, mid-sized learning environment with 897 students and a favorable student-teacher ratio of 13.6 to 1. The school’s greatest academic strength is English Language Arts, where 49.1% of students are proficient on the SAT, beating the state average of 44.02%. Math proficiency (21.56%) also edges out the state average (18.16%), though it trails the district average. The most significant concern is science, where only 22.77% of students are proficient—a full 15 points below the state average. Social studies performance (24.71%) is essentially on par with the state. Graduation rates are a bright spot, with 93.5% of students graduating, well above both district and state averages, and the dropout rate is low at 2.4%.
However, there are two important red flags. First, chronic absenteeism is alarmingly high at 25.7%, meaning more than one in four students misses substantial school time—this is nearly double the district rate and significantly higher than the state rate. This paradox of high graduation but high absenteeism suggests students may be completing requirements without fully engaging in learning. Second, the school’s state ranking has been volatile, dropping from 10th to 23rd in the latest year, even though test scores only dipped modestly. While the school remains above state averages in core subjects, it now underperforms its own district in every subject area, indicating that other schools in the Brandywine School District are pulling ahead. Per-student spending is robust at $18,488, but the science scores and attendance issues suggest those resources may need to be redirected toward targeted interventions.
Thank you for your feedback!