Pelion Elementary, Pelion SC - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Pelion Elementary

Pelion Elementary serves students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in the small, rural town of Pelion, South Carolina. The school sits within Lexington County School District One, a fast-growing district that voters recently approved a large bond referendum to build new schools and address overcrowding. The district has also adopted a new literacy curriculum aligned with the science of reading and raised teacher salaries. These district-level moves signal a system investing in capacity and instruction, which shapes the context a family encounters at the elementary level.

The student body is largely white, with a substantial Hispanic population and smaller shares of Black and multiracial students. Every enrolled student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch under the community eligibility provision, meaning the school serves a population where economic need is universal. The enrollment is moderate for an elementary school serving these grades, with a fairly even distribution across each grade level from kindergarten through fifth.

On state assessments, the picture is mixed. In English language arts, proficiency rates rise steadily across grades, from a share below half of third graders to just over half of fifth graders meeting the bar. This overall ELA proficiency places the school above the midpoint when measured against other elementary schools in Lexington County. Math scores tell a different story. Proficiency rates are lower, with a share of fourth graders scoring proficient that falls well below half, and fifth graders not far above that mark. The combined math proficiency across tested grades trails the county median. Science results for fourth grade are similarly soft, with only a quarter of students reaching proficiency. The state changed its cut scores for both ELA and science in the testing year, which makes direct comparisons to prior years unreliable. A single year of data is available for math and ELA, so there is no trend to examine.

The town of Pelion itself is a small, quiet agricultural community with a slight population decline in recent years. It sits at a rural highway junction southwest of Columbia and is car-dependent by nature. The community center hosts an annual peanut festival that draws residents together, and a public library branch serves the area. Most working residents likely commute to the Columbia region, as local employment is limited. Housing values in Pelion are well below the state and national benchmarks, and a family considering the area would find home prices notably lower than what they would pay in South Carolina overall. The estimated monthly mortgage and rent figures suggest housing is relatively affordable, though the area’s distance from major employment centers is a trade-off.

For a parent or resident evaluating this elementary school, the picture is one of a district putting resources into growth and curriculum while the school itself shows stronger literacy outcomes than math and science results. The high economic need across the student population is a fact of the school’s environment, not a quality judgment. A family might want to ask the school about its math and science instruction and support, particularly given the gap between those subjects and reading. The school’s size is manageable and its grade span means children move on to a middle school after fifth grade, part of the same district that is actively building new capacity.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 345%

School 45% · District 61% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 427%

School 27% · District 59% · ▼ 32 pts below district

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 54% · ▼ 21 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 347%

School 47% · District 69% · ▼ 21 pts below district

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

Grade 452%

School 52% · District 71% · ▼ 18 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Grade 553%

School 53% · District 71% · ▼ 17 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Science

Grade 425%

School 25% · District 52% · ▼ 27 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 561%

School 61% · District 78% · ▼ 18 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

This schoolLexington 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.