Harleyville-Ridgeville Middle

Harleyville-Ridgeville Middle is a public middle school in Dorchester, South Carolina, serving 169 students in grades 6-8. The school is part of the Dorchester 04 school district, which is ranked 64 out of 75 districts in the state and has a 1-star rating from SchoolDigger. Harleyville-Ridgeville Middle has consistently ranked in the bottom 10% of South Carolina middle schools over the past several years, with a 0-star rating from SchoolDigger.

The school has a significantly higher percentage of African American students (55.03%) compared to the state average (37.1%), and a lower percentage of White students (28.4%) compared to the state average (47.3%). Harleyville-Ridgeville Middle consistently performs well below the state and district averages in both English Language Arts and Mathematics proficiency, with only 37% of 6th graders, 31.9% of 7th graders, and 23.2% of 8th graders proficient or better in ELA, and even lower proficiency rates in Mathematics. The school also has a 100% free and reduced lunch rate, indicating that the student population comes from predominantly low-socioeconomic backgrounds.

When compared to nearby schools, Harleyville-Ridgeville Middle is significantly underperforming. For instance, St. George Middle, which is also in the Dorchester 04 district, outperforms Harleyville-Ridgeville Middle in both ELA and Mathematics proficiency by a wide margin. Similarly, schools in the neighboring Dorchester 02 district, such as Rollings Middle School of the Arts and East Edisto Middle, consistently rank among the top-performing middle schools in the state. Harleyville-Ridgeville Middle's performance has also been declining over the years, with the school's statewide ranking dropping from 167 out of 303 middle schools in 2015-2016 to 303 out of 325 middle schools in the 2023-2024 school year.