Conway Middle, Conway SC - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Conway Middle

Conway Middle is a regular public school in Horry County that serves grades six through eight, drawing students from the city of Conway and the surrounding area. The school operates under Horry 01, the county-wide school district. Enrollment is balanced across the three middle school grade levels. Just over half of the student body qualifies for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program, a common measure of economic need. Racially, the student population is predominantly white, with a Black student group that is substantial and a smaller share of Hispanic students; students who identify as two or more races and those of other backgrounds make up the remainder. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the school’s reporting.

Conway Middle’s academic performance, as measured by the state’s SC Ready assessments, shows a clear split between reading and math. In English language arts, the school posts a solid and consistent performance across all three grades, with a majority of students scoring at the proficient level or above in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. This is a clear strength. In math, the picture is notably weaker. Proficiency rates decline as grade levels rise, starting below half in sixth grade and dropping further by eighth grade, where roughly a third of students met the bar. A parent considering this school would likely see a reading program that is delivering for most students, alongside a math program that leaves a sizable share of students below the proficiency line. Science results from the same test year, available only for sixth grade, placed roughly half of students at proficient or above. An older set of seventh-grade social studies scores from a previous assessment framework also showed around half of students at proficiency, though that test used different standards and a different academic year, so it is not directly comparable to current performance.

The school’s location in Conway places it in a town with a distinctive character. Conway is the county seat of Horry County and sits roughly a dozen miles inland from the Atlantic, part of the Myrtle Beach metropolitan area. Its historic downtown, built along the Waccamaw River, has been the focus of revitalization efforts that began decades ago and continue today, with a Riverwalk and a cluster of restaurants and shops. The presence of Coastal Carolina University and Horry-Georgetown Technical College gives Conway a college-town dimension and a younger-than-typical median age. Housing values in the area are near the statewide benchmark, and rents have been rising modestly. The local economy includes manufacturing and construction materials firms as well as the two higher-education institutions as major employers. The area has seen population growth in recent decades, tied to the broader expansion of the Myrtle Beach metro region.

Because Conway Middle is one of multiple middle schools within Horry 01 and the available comparison set within the county is too small to yield a meaningful district-level ranking for middle school proficiency, a parent will need to assess this school’s standing against its local peers by visiting or speaking directly with the district. The school’s math results, in particular, would be a reasonable topic to raise with administrators or to investigate further when choosing courses and supports for a child. No recent district-wide changes of lasting impact from Horry 01 were found in publicly reported sources. The school operates as a standard public middle school, serving as the primary academic pathway for this segment of the Conway community, and its strongest signal in the data is the consistent reading performance across all three grades.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 644%

School 44% · District 47% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 738%

School 38% · District 41% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 835%

School 35% · District 41% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 656%

School 56% · District 58% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Grade 760%

School 60% · District 62% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 859%

School 59% · District 60% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Science

Grade 649%

School 49% · District 55% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 757%

School 57% · District 72% · ▼ 14 pts below district

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

This schoolHorry 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 6Lower-income45%Higher-income73%28 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income52%Higher-income75%23 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income57%Higher-income62%5 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income32%Higher-income66%34 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income25%Higher-income63%38 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income26%Higher-income49%24 pp gap