Orchard Park Elementary, Westminster SC

Original Research by School Decision on Orchard Park Elementary

Orchard Park Elementary serves students from prekindergarten through fifth grade in Westminster, a small town in Oconee County. The school sits on its own campus away from the downtown core, as do the other elementary schools in the area and the middle and high schools that students will eventually attend.

The student body is predominantly white, with a smaller share of Black students and a still smaller Hispanic presence. Every enrolled student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school in a distinct economic context compared to many others in the region. The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and is part of Oconee 01, the district serving this part of the county.

On state assessments administered in the 2024-25 school year, Orchard Park’s results varied noticeably by grade level and subject. In third grade, a strong majority of students scored at or above the proficiency benchmark in both English language arts and math. Fourth graders also posted solid proficiency rates in English language arts and math, and in science they performed well too. Fifth grade is where the picture shifts: while about half of fifth graders met the proficiency bar in English language arts, the math proficiency rate dropped sharply to a level that families will likely want to understand better. Because only a single year of data was available for these assessments, there is no trend line to show whether this drop is a one-year anomaly or part of a pattern. The state made changes to the cut scores for some subjects in recent years, which complicates comparisons with earlier results, and participation rate data was not reported, so it is not possible to confirm what share of students sat for the tests.

Social studies results are only available from several years ago, under a different assessment, so they offer little for current evaluation.

A parent looking at Orchard Park will want to ask the school about the fifth-grade math results specifically. Are there targeted interventions in place for upper elementary math? How does the school support students as they move from fourth grade, where outcomes were stronger, into fifth grade? These are the natural questions that follow from the data.

The community context is stable rather than growing. Westminster’s population has remained modest since its peak of expansion in the 1920s, and the housing stock includes many historic homes from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Manufacturing plants are major local employers. Housing values in the broader area are below the state and national benchmarks, which may factor into family decisions about where to live.

Because the school serves only grades PK through five, there is no graduation rate to report, and no chronic absenteeism data appeared in the available records. The comparison set among districts in Oconee County was too small to produce meaningful ranking information, so a parent considering Orchard Park in relation to other area schools will need to rely on the direct performance data here and their own conversations with the district.

The town itself offers a traditional Main Street with periodic events, a library branch, a recreation department, and proximity to national forest and river recreation. Schools are on separate campuses, of which Orchard Park is one of several elementary options serving the Westminster area.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 375%

School 75% · District 59% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 471%

School 71% · District 56% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 20 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Grade 516%

School 16% · District 48% · ▼ 32 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 377%

School 77% · District 66% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 468%

School 68% · District 60% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 549%

School 49% · District 62% · ▼ 13 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 464%

School 64% · District 56% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 566%

School 66% · District 68% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

This schoolOconee 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.