Pacolet Elementary, Pacolet SC - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Pacolet Elementary

Pacolet Elementary is a regular public school serving prekindergarten through fifth grade in the small town of Pacolet, part of Spartanburg County School District 3. The school is a single-building elementary that sits within the fabric of this historic mill town, not a large campus but a neighborhood school embedded in the community.

Academically, the school posts notably strong results in the early elementary years. Third-grade students show high proficiency in both math and English language arts, and fourth-grade ELA is also solid. As students move into fourth and fifth grade, math and ELA proficiency rates step down noticeably, and fourth-grade science is roughly at the halfway mark. This pattern—strong early performance with a dip in the upper elementary grades—is a recognizable profile that some parents might want to explore further with the school, especially around how instruction or curriculum shifts in grades four and five. The only social studies data available is from several years ago and used a different assessment, so it is not possible to draw a current picture from it.

When compared to other schools in Spartanburg County, Pacolet Elementary’s overall proficiency across all tested subjects and grades places it comfortably in the top quartile. That is a strong signal that the school’s core instruction is effective relative to its neighboring districts, despite the grade-level variation.

The student body is majority white, with a moderate share of Black students, a noticeable share of Hispanic students, and a smaller share of students from Asian and American Indian backgrounds. Every student at Pacolet Elementary qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a sign that the school serves a community with a high concentration of economic need. That concentration is consistent with the town’s history as a mill community that lost its primary employer and is still reframing its economic base. The school’s setting is small-town and close-knit; the community holds events along the Pacolet River and has invested in walking trails and a riverfront park through a multiyear revitalization master plan.

Pacolet itself is a compact, historically significant town with Arts and Crafts architecture and a preserved mill district. It is a short distance from Spartanburg, meaning many residents commute out of town for work, and housing values are moderately affordable relative to national benchmarks. The district brief turned up no major recent changes, so families should not expect recent upheavals in administration or policy, though that also means less publicly reported forward direction from the district.

This school fits a family looking for a small, elementary-only school in a tight-knit, economically modest mill town with strong early academic results and a clear peer ranking that is favorable. The drop in fourth and fifth grade proficiency, particularly in math and science, is an area to investigate directly with school staff. The absence of middle and high school grades means families will need to plan for continuation into Spartanburg 3’s secondary schools, which are not covered in this profile.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 384%

School 84% · District 76% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 31 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

Grade 460%

School 60% · District 61% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

Grade 561%

School 61% · District 65% · ▼ 4 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 382%

School 82% · District 72% · ▲ 11 pts above district

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

Grade 474%

School 74% · District 67% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 73% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▲ 2 pts above state median · even with county median

Science

Grade 452%

School 52% · District 46% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 580%

School 80% · District 77% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

This schoolSpartanburg 03, 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.