Daniel Island School, Charleston SC

Original Research by School Decision on Daniel Island School

Daniel Island School is a regular public school serving kindergarten through eighth grade on Daniel Island, one of the planned residential districts within the city of Charleston, South Carolina. It is part of the Berkeley 01 school district, which covers a fast-growing area that includes parts of Charleston, Goose Creek, Summerville, and Moncks Corner. The school sits in an affluent, master-planned island community with a distinctly suburban feel, though it is part of a broader city known for its historic peninsula, port economy, and expanding aerospace and tech sectors.

Academically, Daniel Island School’s state assessment results are a clear strength. In English language arts, proficiency rates across all tested grades are very high, with every grade from three through eight showing a large majority of students meeting or exceeding state standards. The strongest performance came in fourth grade, while even the lowest ELA grade still saw roughly nine out of ten students proficient. Reading scores of this level are uncommon in most public schools and reflect a student body that is overwhelmingly well-prepared.

Math proficiency is also strong in the early grades, particularly in third grade, but it declines as students move through the middle school years. The share of students scoring proficient is solid in fourth grade and then drops noticeably by fifth grade, with further declines in seventh and eighth grades. This pattern is common in many schools nationally, but a family with a middle-schooler who needs support in math may want to look into this further with the school, especially since the downward trend is more pronounced here than in reading. Science results for fourth and sixth grades are strong, and social studies data from earlier years (before an assessment change) showed very high scores, though that test is no longer given.

The school has a predominantly white enrollment, with small shares of students who are Asian, Hispanic, Black, or two or more races. The share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch is low, which tracks with the area’s high housing costs. On Daniel Island, home values and rents are well above both state and national medians, and the typical mortgage payment far exceeds the typical rent, making the community expensive for most buyers. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in this profile, so a parent with a child who receives special education services or language support may want to ask the school directly about those programs.

Because the school ends at eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. The neighborhood comparison feature could not place Daniel Island School relative to other Berkeley County schools because only one district exists within the county for this analysis. However, in absolute terms, the school’s test scores place it among the highest-performing public schools in the state.

For families, the district context matters. Berkeley 01 is growing rapidly, and voters recently approved a major bond to build new elementary and middle schools, along with safety upgrades and technology improvements. That bond carried a property-tax increase, and attendance zones were redrawn for the following school year to relieve overcrowding. Families moving to Daniel Island should be aware that the school they choose today may be affected by future redistricting as the district continues to add students.

The school lacks published information on discipline, staffing ratios, attendance rates, and course access in the available data, so a fuller picture of day-to-day operations would require a direct inquiry. Still, the academic record and the community context tell a clear story: Daniel Island School is a high-performing, low-poverty public school in an expensive, growing suburban enclave, with strong literacy results and math performance that holds up well in elementary grades but fades somewhat in middle school.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 391%

School 91% · District 49% · ▲ 42 pts above district

▲ 39 pts above state median · ▲ 44 pts above county median

Grade 485%

School 85% · District 47% · ▲ 37 pts above district

▲ 34 pts above state median · ▲ 42 pts above county median

Grade 575%

School 75% · District 40% · ▲ 35 pts above district

▲ 31 pts above state median · ▲ 37 pts above county median

Grade 679%

School 79% · District 27% · ▲ 51 pts above district

▲ 45 pts above state median · ▲ 53 pts above county median

Grade 767%

School 67% · District 28% · ▲ 39 pts above district

▲ 40 pts above state median · ▲ 37 pts above county median

Grade 868%

School 68% · District 25% · ▲ 43 pts above district

▲ 42 pts above state median · ▲ 41 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 392%

School 92% · District 59% · ▲ 33 pts above district

▲ 33 pts above state median · ▲ 34 pts above county median

Grade 496%

School 96% · District 62% · ▲ 35 pts above district

▲ 35 pts above state median · ▲ 39 pts above county median

Grade 591%

School 91% · District 61% · ▲ 30 pts above district

▲ 31 pts above state median · ▲ 32 pts above county median

Grade 685%

School 85% · District 52% · ▲ 33 pts above district

▲ 32 pts above state median · ▲ 33 pts above county median

Grade 790%

School 90% · District 55% · ▲ 35 pts above district

▲ 34 pts above state median · ▲ 36 pts above county median

Grade 887%

School 87% · District 54% · ▲ 33 pts above district

▲ 34 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

Science

Grade 486%

School 86% · District 45% · ▲ 41 pts above district

▲ 41 pts above state median · ▲ 45 pts above county median

Grade 680%

School 80% · District 42% · ▲ 38 pts above district

▲ 37 pts above state median · ▲ 38 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 594%

School 94% · District 74% · ▲ 21 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Grade 794%

School 94% · District 70% · ▲ 24 pts above district

▲ 30 pts above state median · ▲ 32 pts above county median

This schoolBerkeley 01, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.