Summary:
The city of McBee, South Carolina, is served by the Chesterfield 01 school district, which operates just two schools—McBee High (grades 6-12, 577 students) and McBee Elementary (grades PK-5, 349 students)—serving roughly 926 students in this small South Carolina community.
For parents, the most important takeaway is that McBee High is the stronger of the two schools in several key areas. It boasts an 88.7% graduation rate, which beats both the district (82.1%) and state (86.7%) averages, and an impressively low 0.6% dropout rate. The high school also outperforms its district in 7th grade math (33.7% vs. 24.9%), 5th grade math (45.3% vs. 35%), and 5th grade ELA (62.3% vs. 53.5%). However, its state ranking has been volatile, swinging from 112th (3 stars) in 2023-2024 to 190th (1 star) in 2024-2025, before recovering to 166th (2 stars) in 2025-2026. McBee Elementary has shown a steadier but gradual decline in rankings, dropping from the 44th percentile to the 30th percentile over three years, despite receiving $2,406 more per student in funding than the high school.
The most critical weakness across both schools is mathematics. Proficiency gaps versus the state are stark, especially in middle school: 8th grade math sits at just 19.8% proficient (state: 44.2%), and Algebra 1 scores lag by a massive 32 points (41.78% vs. 73.95%). English Language Arts is a relative strength, with 5th grade ELA nearly matching the state average (62.3% vs. 63.6%) and English 2 proficiency reaching 72.72%. Chronic absenteeism is slightly above state averages at both schools (24.5% at the high school, 20.6% at the elementary). The data suggests a "middle school transition problem," where math performance declines sharply as students enter the combined 6-12 environment, and significant year-over-year volatility in test scores, likely due to small class sizes. Overall, parents should expect a district with strong student retention but one that needs targeted math intervention, particularly at the middle school level.
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