The top reported proficiency rate is 63% in English language arts. The lowest is 48% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Pleasant Hill Elementary Stream Academy
Pleasant Hill Elementary STREAM Academy serves students from preschool through fifth grade in the Hemingway area of Georgetown County. The school operates as a regular public school within the Georgetown 01 school district. Every student enrolled qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which is the kind of universal eligibility that often means the school participates in a community eligibility program, so that number reflects the economic profile of the families it serves rather than a paper application count. The student body is roughly evenly split between White students and Black students, with a small share of students who are Hispanic or identify with two or more races. The school is small in size for an elementary, with an enrollment that fits the scale of a single-grade-section building.
State testing data from the most recent school year covers math, English language arts, and science. In math, slightly more than half of students scored at a proficient level across grades three through five, with results similar from one grade to the next. In English language arts, the share of proficient students was higher, reaching into the mid- to upper-sixty percent range in the third and fifth grades. Fourth-grade science results were lower, with less than half of students reaching proficiency. These are single-year results, and the state changed its cut scores for ELA and science in recent years, so direct comparisons with prior years are not straightforward. The school had no data available for social studies beyond the 2018-19 school year, so that subject cannot be evaluated on current performance. A parent may want to ask the school how its science and math instruction compares to the district or state benchmarks, since those subjects show a wider gap.
The school’s name carries the STREAM label, which typically points to an emphasis on science, technology, reading, engineering, arts, and mathematics, but no specific program details or curriculum descriptions were available in the data to confirm what that looks like in practice. The district, Georgetown 01, has at least one other school that transitioned to a Digital Immersion School model, which suggests a district-level interest in specialized instructional approaches, but this school’s specific approach under the STREAM designation is not documented in the materials reviewed.
Hemingway is a very small, rural town that has experienced population decline in recent years. The closure of a major manufacturing employer in 2024 was a significant economic event, and the town’s median household income is low. Housing values in the area are well below state and national averages, and home prices have been falling recently. For a family considering a move, the housing market is affordable but the local economy offers limited employment opportunities, and many residents commute to nearby cities such as Myrtle Beach or Georgetown for work. The town has a compact footprint with a small Main Street core, a public library, and annual community events.
Because the school serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and data on chronic absenteeism, special education identification, English learner status, and disciplinary incidents were all absent from the available record. The comparison to other districts in Georgetown County could not be computed because the school is the only one in the district for which comparable proficiency data was available, so a relative position is not known. A parent may want to follow up with the school directly to understand class sizes, the nature of the STREAM programming, how the school supports students who are below grade level, and how it communicates with families about student progress.
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