High Schools in Williamsburg 01

The Williamsburg 01 district in rural South Carolina serves about 870 students in grades 9-12 across two high schools: Kingstree High and Hemingway High.

For parents, the most important takeaway is that these two schools offer very different experiences. Kingstree High is the larger school with 681 students, a 13.4:1 student-teacher ratio, and per-student spending of $18,605. Hemingway High is much smaller at 189 students, with a better 11.1:1 ratio and significantly higher spending at $24,748 per student. Despite that extra investment, Hemingway only slightly edges out Kingstree on graduation rate (84.6% vs. 82.6%) and has a much lower dropout rate (1.6% vs. 3.0%). However, Kingstree actually outperforms Hemingway in U.S. History proficiency (38.38% vs. 27.02%) and matches it in English 2 (80.84% vs. 80.55%). Both schools trail the state average of 86.7% for graduation, and the district overall ranks in the bottom 20% of South Carolina districts.

The most pressing issue for both schools is chronic absenteeism, which is alarmingly high. Hemingway High has a staggering 52.8% chronic absenteeism rate—more than double the state average of 22.3%—while Kingstree High sits at 36.9%. This is especially concerning because Hemingway still managed strong English 1 (57.89%) and Algebra 1 (84.77%) scores in recent years, suggesting students can succeed when they show up. Both schools also struggle with U.S. History, where proficiency is roughly half the state average. Finally, rankings swing dramatically year to year—Hemingway jumped from 129th to 73rd then fell to 170th, while Kingstree dropped from 106th to 184th—likely due to small cohort sizes. Parents should weigh the smaller, higher-spending environment at Hemingway against its severe attendance problems, and consider Kingstree's larger scale and more stable, though still below-average, performance.