Greenwood Charter Academy, Greenwood SC

Original Research by School Decision on Greenwood Charter Academy

Greenwood Charter Academy is a publicly funded charter school serving a grade band of kindergarten through sixth grade, located on the northwest side of the city of Greenwood in the South Carolina Piedmont. It operates under the statewide Charter Institute at Erskine, a district that authorizes more than two dozen charter schools across the state. As a charter school, it is a regular public school that families choose to attend rather than a traditional assigned neighborhood school.

Greenwood itself is a county seat with a walkable historic downtown known as Uptown Greenwood, featuring restored buildings, shops, galleries, and a central square with topiary displays. The city's employment base leans on manufacturing, retail trade, and healthcare and social assistance, with major local employers including Self Regional Healthcare, the Greenwood Genetic Center, and two colleges within the city. The city's population declined slightly between recent censuses but is described in public materials as a growing community. Housing values in the area sit below the national and state benchmarks, and rental costs follow a similar pattern.

State testing results are available for reading, math, and science across several grade levels, though the school's stated grade band ends at sixth grade and the data includes a seventh-grade cohort, so a parent may want to clarify with the school which grades are actually served. In reading, proficiency rates across the tested grades vary considerably, with some grades showing a majority of students meeting the bar and others falling below half. In math, proficiency rates are lower across all tested grades, with particularly soft results in one grade level. Science results are available for two grades and fall at a modest level. The state made changes to cut scores for reading and science in this testing cycle, which means the results are not directly comparable to prior years. The school's overall proficiency across all tested subjects and grades, when compared to other districts in Greenwood County, sits at the bottom of the range.

The student body is composed of roughly equal shares of Black and White students, with a smaller representation of Hispanic students and small numbers of students from other racial backgrounds. A very small share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Enrollment by individual grade level is fairly even across kindergarten through sixth grade. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available, so those dimensions are not part of this picture.

The authorizing district, the Charter Institute at Erskine, has grown over time, now managing over two dozen charter schools across South Carolina. A publicly reported state audit reviewed the authorizer's oversight and operations. Parents choosing this school are making a choice that sits outside the traditional county school district system and under a district whose practices have drawn recent state attention. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. No information on program offerings, course access, or extracurriculars was available in the data reviewed.

For a family considering this option, the picture is that of a small charter school with a limited grade span, set in a city with a compact downtown and a mix of industrial and institutional employment. Academic performance is uneven, with reading stronger than math, and the school's overall attainment places it on the lower end compared to other districts in the county. A parent will want to visit and ask directly about the grade band discrepancy in the test results as well as the school's approach to its academic soft spots.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 325%

School 25% · District 41% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 39 pts below county median

Grade 432%

School 32% · District 36% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 33 pts below county median

Grade 514%

School 14% · District 30% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 31 pts below state median · ▼ 47 pts below county median

Grade 631%

School 31% · District 30% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median

Grade 76%

School 6% · District 29% · ▼ 23 pts below district

▼ 22 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 345%

School 45% · District 57% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 455%

School 55% · District 56%

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Grade 560%

School 60% · District 58% · ▲ 2 pts above district

even with state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Grade 650%

School 50% · District 60% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 3 pts below state median

Grade 736%

School 36% · District 61% · ▼ 25 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median

Science

Grade 437%

School 37% · District 40% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 627%

School 27% · District 47% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median

This schoolCharter Institute at Erskine, 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.