Summary:
Zip code 29470 is home to a single public elementary school, E.B. Ellington Elementary, which serves grades PK through 5th and enrolls 366 students in the Charleston 01 school district.
For parents considering this area, the most important takeaway is that E.B. Ellington Elementary is currently performing in the bottom 13% of all elementary schools in South Carolina, based on its state ranking. Test scores are significantly below both district and state averages across every subject and grade level. For example, in 5th-grade ELA, only 27.1% of students are proficient, compared to 68% for the district and 63.6% for the state. Math scores tell a similar story, with 5th-grade proficiency at 27.1% versus the district's 59.3%. The school does have some positive attributes: a favorable student-teacher ratio of 11.1 and very high per-student spending of $34,476, which suggests smaller class sizes and ample resources. However, these resources have not translated into academic success, and the school faces a significant challenge with chronic absenteeism, as 26.4% of students are chronically absent—higher than both the district (20.5%) and state (22.3%) averages.
On a more hopeful note, the school's state ranking has shown a slight upward trend over the past three years, moving from the 2nd percentile in 2023-2024 to the 8th percentile in 2024-2025, and now to the 13th percentile in 2025-2026. This indicates some progress, though it remains slow and uneven. The achievement gap between this school and the rest of the district is substantial and consistent, making it clear that the school's challenges are complex and likely tied to factors beyond just funding or class size. For parents, this means that while the school offers a supportive environment with small classes, they should be prepared for the reality that academic performance is currently well below state norms, and that addressing attendance issues may be a key area of focus for improvement.
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