Meeting Street Elementary, North Charleston SC

Original Research by School Decision on Meeting Street Elementary

Meeting Street Elementary is a regular public school in North Charleston that serves students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. The school operates as part of the Charleston 01 school district, which covers a large and varied area. North Charleston itself is a spread-out city of about 81 square miles with a mix of industrial, commercial, and residential zones. Its economy is anchored by Boeing’s aircraft assembly facility, Joint Base Charleston, and a range of manufacturing and technology employers. The city has a car-dependent layout, with neighborhoods that range from older areas near the former naval base to newer subdivisions. Housing values in the school’s ZIP code have been on a slight downward trend recently, while rents have been climbing, a pattern that families considering the area may want to track.

The school enrolls a large student body for the grade span it covers, with classes from PK through eighth grade that feed a steady pipeline into the upper elementary and middle school years. The student population is predominantly Black and Hispanic, with small shares of white students and students of other races. Every enrolled student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, making this a school that serves a high-poverty community. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the materials reviewed.

On state assessments, Meeting Street Elementary shows a pattern where proficiency rates are modest across the board. In math, the share of students meeting the state’s proficiency benchmark in each tested grade falls consistently below a third of test-takers, with eighth-grade math at the lower end of that range. English language arts results are notably stronger, with several grades reaching about a third of students scoring proficient. However, science results from a recent year were extremely low in the tested grades, a soft spot that a parent may want to explore further with the school. Social studies data available from an earlier year also showed modest results. Because the school does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and no advanced placement or dual-credit course access data applies here.

Because Meeting Street Elementary is one of only a few hundred schools in its district and the comparison data among Charleston County’s other districts was too limited to draw meaningful rankings, the evaluation is best done against the school’s own profile. Its strengths lie in having a full PK-through-eighth-grade pathway in one building, which can provide continuity for families who want their children to stay in a familiar setting through middle school. The school’s size supports a range of grade-level peers and programming. The high poverty concentration means the school qualifies for schoolwide federal support, and many families may find the wraparound services common in such schools to be a practical benefit.

The district itself, Charleston 01, did not show any major recent changes in publicly available records, such as a recent bond referendum or curriculum overhaul. That may be a quiet signal that the operating context is stable, but families should ask the school directly about current initiatives, staffing levels, and any shifts in academic programming.

For a parent or resident sizing up Meeting Street Elementary, the picture is of a large, high-poverty school in an industrial and suburban city where the academic results in most tested subjects are below where many families would hope. The English language arts scores are a relative bright spot. The school’s main draw is the convenience of having elementary and middle school in one place, giving students a consistent environment through eighth grade, at which point they would move to a Charleston 01 high school. Families should inquire directly about science instruction, support for students who are behind grade level, and how the school engages with the broader North Charleston community, including the employers and civic anchors that define the city.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 327%

School 27% · District 63% · ▼ 36 pts below district

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

Grade 416%

School 16% · District 60% · ▼ 44 pts below district

▼ 35 pts below state median · ▼ 32 pts below county median

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 57% · ▼ 29 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 618%

School 18% · District 49% · ▼ 31 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 717%

School 17% · District 49% · ▼ 32 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 814%

School 14% · District 45% · ▼ 30 pts below district

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 321%

School 21% · District 65% · ▼ 44 pts below district

▼ 39 pts below state median · ▼ 42 pts below county median

Grade 426%

School 26% · District 66% · ▼ 41 pts below district

▼ 36 pts below state median · ▼ 37 pts below county median

Grade 534%

School 34% · District 67% · ▼ 33 pts below district

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

Grade 631%

School 31% · District 63% · ▼ 32 pts below district

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

Grade 731%

School 31% · District 65% · ▼ 34 pts below district

▼ 25 pts below state median · ▼ 26 pts below county median

Grade 832%

School 32% · District 64% · ▼ 32 pts below district

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 33 pts below county median

Science

Grade 410%

School 10% · District 54% · ▼ 44 pts below district

▼ 35 pts below state median · ▼ 34 pts below county median

Grade 67%

School 7% · District 55% · ▼ 48 pts below district

▼ 37 pts below state median · ▼ 41 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 68% · ▼ 44 pts below district

▼ 47 pts below state median · ▼ 40 pts below county median

This schoolCharleston 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income37%Higher-income23%14 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income31%Higher-income18%12 pp gap