Summary:
Zip code 29673 in Piedmont, South Carolina, is home to four elementary schools serving grades PK/K through 5th grade, with a combined enrollment of 2,616 students across two different school districts: Anderson 01 and Greenville 01.
For parents, the most striking finding is the significant performance gap between the two districts. Wren Elementary and Spearman Elementary in Anderson 01 are clear standouts, ranking in the top 8% and top 7% of the state respectively. Wren achieves an average of 84.2% proficiency in English Language Arts (ELA) and 75.6% in math, while Spearman posts 80.1% in ELA and 78.6% in math. In contrast, Grove Elementary and Sue Cleveland Elementary in Greenville 01 lag significantly, with average ELA proficiency of just 55.0% and 60.3% respectively. This creates a 24.5 percentage point gap in average ELA proficiency between the districts. Notably, the lower-performing Greenville 01 schools actually spend about $4,000 more per student and have smaller class sizes, yet still achieve far lower test scores, suggesting the extra resources may be addressing greater student needs rather than driving academic excellence.
Several other insights stand out. Sue Cleveland Elementary has a concerning chronic absenteeism rate of 29.2%, nearly 2.6 times higher than Wren Elementary's 11.4%. Spearman Elementary shows the most consistent improvement, climbing from 85th to 42nd in state rankings over three years. Wren Elementary has a puzzling 25.6-point drop in 5th grade math proficiency, while Grove Elementary's 4th grade math score of 32.9% is critically low. Across all schools, 5th grade scores tend to be lower than 3rd grade scores, suggesting academic challenges intensify as students progress.
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