Heron Virtual Academy of South Carolina

Heron Virtual Academy of South Carolina is a public virtual charter school in Greenville, SC, serving 1,439 students in grades 8 through 12 under the Charter Institute at Erskine.

If you're considering this school, the most important thing to know is that its academic outcomes are dramatically lower than both the state average and the traditional public schools nearby. The school ranks in the bottom 1% of high schools statewide, while nearby schools like Riverside High (92nd percentile) and Greenville Technical Charter High (96th percentile) are among the best in the state. On state exams, proficiency rates are strikingly low—for example, only 22.95% of students passed Algebra 1 (state average: 64.58%) and just 15.07% passed English 1 (state average: 60.91%). The 8th-grade math proficiency rate is especially concerning at 5.1%, compared to the state's 44.2%. The graduation rate is 49.7%, less than 60% of the state average, while the dropout rate of 11.3% is more than five times the state average. By contrast, every nearby traditional high school in the Greenville 01 district has a graduation rate above 87% and a dropout rate below 2.4%.

A key factor behind these numbers appears to be chronic absenteeism: 51.1% of students are chronically absent, meaning more than half miss significant school time. This rate is more than double the state average (22.3%) and far exceeds nearby schools, which range from 0.4% at the Governor's School for Arts and Humanities to 33.0% at J. L. Mann High Academy. The school's student-teacher ratio of 24.1:1 is also higher than the 16:1 to 19.5:1 ratios at nearby schools, which may limit the support available to students. There is one bright spot: English 2 exam proficiency reached 69.37% in recent years, though still below the state average. Overall, the data suggests this virtual option is struggling to engage and support its students compared to the strong traditional schools in the Greenville area.