Dear Charleston County School District (CCSD) Students, Parents, and Community Members:

We are extremely proud of what our students continue to do inside and outside the classroom and the instruction and support they receive from their teachers and school-based administrators. Our District has much to celebrate from the 2016-17 school year but still has work to ensure all of our students are college, career, and citizenship ready.

CCSD’s graduating Class of 2017 outperformed their South Carolina counterparts in all four subject area subtests of the ACT. Their composite score (an average of scores on all four subtests) of 19.6 also was higher than the state average of 18.7, which ranked CCSD 5th among the state’s 82 school districts.

Nine CCSD schools and the District overall showed average composite score increases of 0.3 points or more, which is considered to be statistically significant by the ACT. 

This past spring, CCSD eleventh-grade students outperformed their South Carolina counterparts in all four subject area subtests of the ACT and in the overall composite with a score of 19.2 compared to the state average composite of 17.7, ranking CCSD fourth among South Carolina’s 82 public school districts. The percentage of CCSD students scoring at or above ACT’s college-readiness benchmarks is higher than the statewide average in each of the four subject areas and also in the percentage of students who met or exceeded all four benchmarks. In fact, among students who took courses that prepare them for college, defined by ACT as taking four or more years of English and three or more years of math, social studies, and natural science, CCSD’s average composite of 21.7 is very close to the national average of 22.5 for graduating seniors.

A significant achievement gap persists in many academic areas. This achievement gap can create an “opportunity gap” that prevents our young people from gaining employment once they graduate from high school or from accessing higher education.  Student performance in tests for English language arts, math, science, and social studies indicates we must dramatically improve our strategies to support all students and teachers if our students are going to be successful in high-tech careers in the Lowcountry.

The District, which serves more than 50,000 students, continues to plan for growth in the area with new schools and facilities. In 2016-17, we opened new buildings for Burke’s culinary arts program, Chicora Elementary, and Springfield Elementary as well as a new school for the North Charleston area, Deer Park Middle. In 2017-18, we opened a new school with a new facility in Mount Pleasant, Carolina Park Elementary, and merged two middle schools, Fort Johnson and James Island, to form Camp Road Middle.

Another important addition for our district in the 2017-18 school year is Early College High School, a program school in which nearly 100 students from all over the county are attending high school on the Palmer Campus of Trident Technical College (TTC) in downtown Charleston. Thanks to this partnership with TTC and the rigor and support they will receive, these students will have the opportunity to earn a two-year associate degree along with their high school diploma by the time they graduate. It is another way our District is working to close the achievement gap and ensure more of our students are college, career, and citizenship ready.

Additionally, leaders at our schools continue to pursue strategies for engaging the students and their communities. In 2016-17, R.B. Stall High and Memminger Elementary were named Capturing Kids’ Hearts National Showcase Schools by the Flippen Group (two of only three schools in the country to receive that honor), and Memminger earned its International Baccalaureate certification, completing a multi-year process. In 2017-18, Burke High will implement the New Tech Network (NTN) model, a proven school model around project-based learning. It is structured around four pillars: teaching that engages, technology that enables, culture that empowers, and outcomes that matter.

CCSD is on the road to financial stability. For the first time in four years, our District entered the school year with a balanced budget, and we were able to restore or add more than 120 teaching positions across the District.

Over the past year we have worked on our District’s strategic plan with a wide variety of stakeholders, including business and community partners, parents, principals, teachers, classified staff, and students.  All of these stakeholders have participated to help us identify focus areas and actions we must address in supporting all of our students.

We are continuing to pursue accreditation for all of our schools through AdvancEd, an international non-profit, non-partisan organization that conducts a rigorous on-site review.  Our District anticipates scheduling an engagement review from AdvancEd for the fall of the 2018-19 school year.  During that week-long event, members of AdvancEd will review CCSD's current practices and help us continue to focus on areas we can improve.

We remain committed to ensuring greater equity, access, opportunity, and achievement for all of our students in Charleston County. Your support of CCSD is greatly appreciated, and we truly believe one of the most important and successful years in our District’s history is about to take place as we put students at the heart of our work.

 

Gerrita Postlewait

Superintendent of Schools