Absence
Lee County Cut Chronic Absence 8.3 Points While Six Peers Rose
Lee County's chronic absence rate fell from 33.4% to 25.1% as six comparison districts rose; Dennis Elementary fell 44.1 points.
South Carolina
Education News & Data
Local education reporting from every corner of South Carolina, grounded in South Carolina Department of Education data.
Cherokee County Cut Chronic Absenteeism 13 Points in Two Years From Its 2022-23 Peak
Cherokee County went from 39.3% chronic absenteeism in 2022-23 to 26.2% in 2024-25, the third-largest drop among 80 South Carolina districts.
South Carolina's Chronic Absenteeism Improvement Slowed in 2024-25
Last school year's most recent published data show 176,344 chronically absent students and a statewide rate of 22.3%, down 0.9 percentage points.
Charleston Tries Paying Families $25 a Week to Send Kids to School
Charleston County's $25-per-week attendance pilot at 10 schools comes as its chronic absenteeism rate improved from 24.4% to 20.5%, still above the 2022 level.
Greenwood 52 Cut Chronic Absenteeism to 7.8%
Greenwood 52's published chronic-absenteeism rate fell from 14.0% to 7.8% in one year, while South Carolina's rate was 22.3%.
More Coverage
Absence
Only Clover and Rock Hill Improved Chronic Absenteeism Every Year in the Available Panel
Clover and Rock Hill were the only two of 77 complete South Carolina district-level series to improve chronic absenteeism every year.
District Spotlight
McCormick Has 483 Students Left
McCormick, Lee, and Williamsburg have each lost over 40% of their students since 2015. McCormick has 483 left.
District Spotlight
Three South Carolina Districts Slid Backward as the State Reached a Ten-Year High
While South Carolina's graduation rate reached a ten-year high, Lexington 2 dropped 12.9 points, Darlington fell 11.0, and Spartanburg 4 declined 10.6, the three largest district declines in the available series.
Special Populations
South Carolina's Special-Education Graduation Rate Rose 9.5 Points
South Carolina's special-education graduation rate rose from 52.1% to 61.6% while its gap from the all-student rate narrowed from 30.5 to 25.1 points.
Grade Shift
South Carolina Enrolled 2,546 Fewer Kindergartners Than 12th Graders
State enrollment rows show kindergarten fell below 12th grade in 2024-25 and the gap widened to 2,546 students in 2025-26.
District Spotlight
Charleston Reaches the 90% Club at 90.0%
Charleston County School District posted a 90.0% graduation rate in 2025, reaching South Carolina's 90% threshold after a nine-year climb.
District Spotlight
Oconee County Has Worsened Every Year While South Carolina Recovered
Oconee County has worsened every year in SC's chronic absenteeism data, rising from 19.3% to 23.2% while the state recovered from its peak.
District Spotlight
Sumter: Where More Than One in Three Students Miss a Month of School
Sumter has the worst chronic absenteeism of any large SC district at 35.9%, with rates above 30% for every racial group and nearly every subpopulation.
Equity
South Carolina's Boys Are Catching Up, But the Gender Gap in Graduation Remains Nearly 7 Points
Male students in SC graduate at 83.3% vs. 90.2% for female students, a 6.9-point gap that peaked at 12.2 points in 2019 and 2020.
Demographics
A 2017 Reclassification Cut South Carolina's Native American Student Count in Half, on Paper
Native American enrollment fell 49.6% since 2015, but most of the drop is a reporting artifact. A 2017 reclassification into multiracial moved 2,065 students into a new category in one year.
