Summary:
Zip code 29628 is home to a single high school, Calhoun Falls Charter School, a small rural charter school in Calhoun Falls, SC, serving grades 6 through 12 with a total enrollment of just 159 students.
For parents considering this area, the most important takeaway is that Calhoun Falls Charter School offers an exceptionally personalized learning environment, but its academic performance is currently volatile and uneven. The school boasts a remarkable 8:1 student-teacher ratio and spends $17,366 per student, which is well above national averages. This investment, however, has not translated into consistent results. The school’s state ranking has plummeted from the 54th percentile (3 stars) in 2022-2023 to the 13th percentile (1 star) in 2025-2026, placing it 214th out of 245 schools in South Carolina. This dramatic decline is a major red flag for parents to investigate further.
Academically, the school shows a stark contrast between subjects. On the positive side, 8th-grade ELA proficiency is a strong point at 63.6%, beating both the district (62.1%) and state (59.5%) averages, and the school’s dropout rate is impressively low at 1.1% compared to the state’s 2.1%. However, the most alarming statistic is the 8th-grade math proficiency rate of just 4.8%, a catastrophic figure compared to the state average of 44.2%. U.S. History proficiency (35%) is also far below the state average (62.57%). While the school, part of the Charter Institute at Erskine, keeps students enrolled and on track to graduate (83.9% graduation rate), the severe deficiencies in core subjects like math and history suggest that the high per-student spending is not being effectively converted into academic achievement. The school’s success in ELA provides a foundation to build on, but parents should be aware that significant academic challenges exist, particularly in math.
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