Best Public Schools in Zip Code 29161

Zip code 29161, encompassing the Timmonsville area of South Carolina, is served by a single elementary school, Brockington Elementary Magnet, which educates students in grades PK-5 as part of the Florence 01 school district.

For parents considering this area, the most important takeaway is that Brockington Elementary Magnet is a school with strong resources that is currently facing significant academic challenges, primarily driven by a severe attendance crisis. The school spends a substantial $17,377 per student and maintains an excellent student-teacher ratio of 11.7:1, indicating that class sizes are small and financial investment is high. However, academic proficiency is well below both district and state averages across all subjects. For example, ELA proficiency rates hover around 38-41%, compared to roughly 64-69% for the district and state. The most alarming trend is in math, where 3rd graders achieve 49% proficiency, but this plummets to just 16.9% in 4th grade and 21.8% in 5th grade, a dramatic "fourth-grade slump" not seen at the district or state level. Science proficiency in 4th grade is also very low at 17.3% versus over 48% elsewhere.

The root cause of these low scores appears to be chronic absenteeism. With a staggering 44.5% of students chronically absent—nearly double the district rate of 26.4% and more than double the state rate of 22.3%—it is clear that nearly half the student body is missing significant instructional time. This directly explains why high spending and small class sizes are not translating into achievement. The school's state ranking reflects this struggle, falling to the bottom 5th percentile (616 out of 649) for the 2025-2026 school year, a sharp reversal after showing slight improvement the previous year. For parents, this means that while the school has the resources and staffing to provide a quality education, any meaningful improvement will require a concerted effort to address the underlying attendance issues that are holding students back.