Calhoun Falls Charter School

Calhoun Falls Charter School is a small public charter school in the rural town of Calhoun Falls, SC, serving 159 students in grades 6 through 12 under the Charter Institute at Erskine. The school has experienced a dramatic academic decline in recent years, falling from an 81st percentile statewide ranking (4 stars) in 2020-2021 to just the 13th percentile (1 star) in the current school year—a drop of 68 percentile points in five years.

The most urgent concern is mathematics proficiency. Only 4.8% of 8th graders are proficient in math, compared to 44.2% statewide and 67.7% at nearby Dixie High. This represents a catastrophic collapse from the prior year's 20.9% proficiency rate. English Language Arts tells a mixed story: 7th-grade ELA proficiency (63.6%) actually exceeds the state average, but 8th-grade ELA (33.4%) falls far below it—a 30-point gap within the same school year that suggests a significant transition problem. Despite these challenges, the school maintains an exceptionally low 8:1 student-teacher ratio and spends $17,366 per student, both better than neighboring schools like Crescent High ($13,367 per student, 17.8:1 ratio) and Abbeville High ($15,886 per student, 14.9:1 ratio).

The school's graduation rate (83.9%) remains close to the state average, but this masks a deeper problem: students are graduating without the academic skills needed for college or career readiness. Chronic absenteeism (18.7%) is more than double the district average of 11.5%, which is particularly impactful given the school's small size. The school's best years came during the pandemic (2020-2021), suggesting its true baseline may have been lower all along. While the nearby Governor's School for Agriculture at John de la Howe demonstrates what's possible in the same region with a similar student-teacher ratio, Calhoun Falls Charter School needs immediate intervention, especially in middle school math instruction, to reverse its downward trajectory.