Summary:
Zip code 29488 in Walterboro, SC, is served by a single middle school, Colleton County Middle, which enrolls 931 students in grades 6 through 8 and is part of the Colleton 01 school district.
For parents considering this area, the most important takeaway is that Colleton County Middle faces significant academic challenges, with proficiency rates in core subjects well below state averages. In the most recent testing, math proficiency is critically low, ranging from just 13.9% in 7th and 8th grades to 19.8% in 6th grade, compared to state averages above 40%. English Language Arts proficiency is also weak, hovering between 31.7% and 37.9% across grades, while the state average is near 57-59%. The school’s state ranking reflects this struggle, placing it in the bottom 7th percentile (ranked 312 out of 335) for the 2025-2026 school year, a decline from the previous year’s 12th percentile. One bright spot is a 100% proficiency rate on the Algebra 1 end-of-course exam, but this likely reflects a small, select group of advanced students rather than overall math success.
A major concern is the school’s chronic absenteeism rate of 38.4%, nearly double the state average of 22.3%, which almost certainly hampers learning. Despite spending a substantial $14,772 per student and maintaining a favorable 13.3:1 student-teacher ratio, the academic results do not reflect that investment. The school’s performance closely mirrors the Colleton 01 district as a whole, indicating systemic issues rather than problems isolated to this one campus. While the school showed slight improvement in 2024-2025, it slipped back in the latest data, suggesting inconsistent progress. Parents should be aware that while resources and class sizes are positive, the combination of low test scores and high absenteeism are significant hurdles that the school has yet to overcome.
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