Summary:
In zip code 29405, there is just one middle school option: Morningside Middle, a 6th-8th grade school in North Charleston serving 552 students as part of the Charleston 01 district.
For parents considering this area, the most important takeaway is that Morningside Middle is a high-resource school with very low academic outcomes. The school has ranked in the bottom 1-2% of all South Carolina middle schools for three consecutive years, a stark contrast to its district, which is rated 4 stars and ranks in the top 28% statewide. Test scores are critically low: English Language Arts proficiency ranges from 21.6% to 28.4%, math proficiency from 9.5% to 15.2%, and 6th-grade science proficiency is just 19.5%—all dramatically below district and state averages. However, the school spends a substantial $22,401 per student and maintains a favorable 11.1:1 student-teacher ratio, suggesting that funding and class size are not the primary obstacles.
There are a few bright spots worth noting. Chronic absenteeism is just 9.4%, far better than the district (20.5%) and state (22.3%) averages, meaning students are consistently showing up to school. Additionally, there is a remarkable "Algebra 1 anomaly": students in that advanced course post an 83.32% proficiency rate, actually exceeding both the district (82.31%) and state (73.95%) averages—a sign that advanced math programming is working well and could be expanded. There is also a slight upward trend in 6th and 8th-grade math scores from 2024-2025 to 2025-2026. While the overall picture is concerning, these pockets of success and the school's strong attendance suggest that targeted instructional changes, rather than resource allocation, may be the key to improvement.
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