Best Public Schools in Georgetown, SC

The city of Georgetown, South Carolina, is served by the Georgetown 01 school district, which operates eight public schools—six elementary schools (PK-5), one middle school (6-8), and one high school (9-12)—with a total enrollment of roughly 3,481 students.

For parents, the standout school in this district is clearly Kensington Elementary, which is the only school to earn a 2-star rating and rank in the 43rd percentile or higher. It posts the highest proficiency rates in the district for 5th-grade ELA (73.3%) and math (59.2%), and it does so while spending the least among elementary schools ($15,355 per student). At the other end of the spectrum, Plantersville Elementary Digital Immersion School is a puzzling anomaly: it spends a staggering $32,548 per student—more than double what Georgetown Middle spends—yet has no recent test score data, a 28.1% chronic absenteeism rate, and a history of ranking in the bottom 9th percentile. Georgetown High offers a bright spot, with its state ranking jumping from the 37th to the 56th percentile in one year, and its students exceeding state averages in U.S. History (68.09%) and Algebra 1 (77.53%).

The district’s biggest challenge is elementary math proficiency, which lags state averages by 10 to 30 points across all schools. This weakness appears to compound by middle school, where Georgetown Middle is the lowest-ranked school (18th percentile) and only 14.1% of 8th graders are proficient in math versus the state’s 44.2%. Chronic absenteeism is also a district-wide issue, with Plantersville, Georgetown Middle, and Sampit Elementary all exceeding the state average of 22.3%. Notably, the four highest-spending schools—Plantersville, Brown's Ferry Elementary School for the Creative and Perform, McDonald Elementary, and Sampit—are all ranked in the bottom 20th percentile, while the lowest-spending school (Kensington) is the top performer. This suggests that money alone isn’t driving success, and that factors like family engagement and instructional quality may matter more. Sampit Elementary also shows a dramatic drop-off in math proficiency from 3rd grade (48.4%, the district’s best) to 4th grade (20.4%, the district’s worst), hinting at a possible curriculum transition issue.