Summary:
Estill, South Carolina is served by a single elementary school, Estill Elementary, which enrolls 196 students in grades PK through 4 and is part of the Hampton school district.
For parents considering this school, the most important takeaway is that Estill Elementary shows a clear split in academic performance. The school’s 4th-grade English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency rate is a genuine bright spot, reaching 60% in the most recent school year and 64.9% the year before—numbers that are competitive with, and in the prior year above, both district and state averages. However, this strength is sharply contrasted by a dramatic collapse in 4th-grade math, where proficiency fell from 40.5% to just 17.1% in a single year, far below the state average of 52.3%. Science proficiency is also very low at 20%. This pattern suggests that while the school can achieve strong results in reading, students are struggling significantly with math and science concepts as they advance to 4th grade.
Another critical factor is chronic absenteeism, which stands at 26.7%—higher than both the district (22.9%) and state (22.3%) averages. This means more than one in four students is missing substantial school time, which directly undermines learning. On a positive note, the school maintains a favorable student-teacher ratio of 11.8 and spends a substantial $15,985 per student, indicating that resources and class sizes are not the primary obstacles. The school’s overall state ranking has also declined sharply, from the 42nd percentile in 2023-2024 to the 12th percentile in 2025-2026. For parents, the key concern is the urgent need to address the math decline and absenteeism, while the ELA success provides a proven model that could be replicated in other subjects.
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