The top reported proficiency rate is 49% in English language arts. The lowest is 27% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Forest Hills Elementary
Forest Hills Elementary serves first through fifth grade in Walterboro, the county seat of Colleton County. It is a regular public school within the Colleton 01 district. The school draws from a town with a historic character, a downtown that retains many early 1800s buildings, and a role as an antiquing destination and an Interstate 95 corridor stop between Charleston and Beaufort. The area has seen relatively flat population trends in recent years. The housing market in the broader zip-code area has shown a mild softening in value, and the national context of elevated mortgage rates applies here as it does elsewhere. No recent district-level changes of lasting impact were found in publicly available sources.
The student body is diverse in its makeup. Black or African American students form the largest single group, followed by white students, with smaller shares of Hispanic, two-or-more-races, Asian, and American Indian or Alaska Native students. Every student enrolled at Forest Hills qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch under federal income guidelines, a distinction that shapes the school's funding and programming. Data on English learner and special education identification rates was not available.
On state assessments, the picture varies by subject and grade. In English language arts, proficiency rates rise steadily across the tested grades, with the lowest share of students meeting the bar in third grade and the highest in fifth grade. In math, the pattern is less consistent: fourth grade shows the strongest result, while both third and fifth grade proficiency rates are notably weaker. The science assessment for fourth graders shows roughly two in five students reaching the proficiency threshold. A social studies score is available only from a prior test year under a different assessment, making any direct comparison unreliable. Only one year of current data is available for math and ELA, so no trend direction can be established. The state made changes to the cut scores for the ELA and science assessments in this testing cycle, which means prior results may not be directly comparable.
Because Colleton 01 is the only school district in the county, there is no basis for a comparison with peer districts here. The school itself sits in a county with one district, so the typical neighbor-comparison framework does not apply.
The school is part of a district that includes several elementary schools spread across the area, a single middle school, and a single high school. Private school options and a local university campus are also present in the broader community, offering families alternatives to consider.
For a parent evaluating Forest Hills Elementary, the context is a school where all students are from low-income households, where student diversity is broad, and where academic results on state tests are mixed. The strongest performance appears in upper-grade reading, while math proficiency is a weaker area. The surrounding town is a stable, historic community with modest growth, not a fast-expanding suburb. This is the kind of school where supports tied to poverty, such as community eligibility for meal programs and Title I resources, are likely central to its operations. A parent may want to follow up with the school directly on student progress year to year, as the single-year data alone does not show whether results are improving or declining.
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