By admin 
A Midlands elementary school’s speedy improvement was among the education performances highlighted by South Carolina officials in the state’s 2026 school report cards.
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South Lake Elementary School in Lexington’s White Knoll community has a bumpy first year in operation. During the 2024-25 school year, the elementary school had scored a 40 on the state’s report card, a “below average” score.
In the most recent results announced Monday, the school jumped to an overall score of 52, improving to “average” and just missing out on a 53 that would have ranked the school as “good.” That would have jumped South Lake two full performance categories.
The Lexington school was invited to participate in a press conference state Superintendent Ellen Weaver gave at the State House Monday to celebrate some of the state’s top achieving schools.
“I’ve had the privilege of visiting every school district in South Carolina, many of them multiple times, and these results mirror what I see in classrooms across our state,” Weaver said in announcing the release of the latest set of report cards. “When we combine high expectations with strong support, South Carolina students can compete with anyone, anywhere.”
Released annually by the S.C. Department of Education, the report cards give each public school in South Carolina a numerical grade on a scale of 100, based on a number of metrics tracking students’ classroom performances.
In South Lake’s case, the school’s academic levels rose from “average” to “good,” including an 11-point jump in math scores, and a 31-point increase in student progress measurements, including a 27-point increase among the lowest-performing 20% of students.
Lexington 1, which includes South Lake, said South Lake’s improvement was in line with other targets in the district, covering the central part of Lexington County. The district saw an increase in its students’ career-readiness scores and the number of students on path to graduate, the district said in a media release touting the results.
The district had 12 school rank “excellent” overall, another seven that ranked “good,” and for the first time in five years, none of Lexington 1’s schools ranked below “average.”
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“These results show that the work happening every day in our classrooms is moving us in the right direction,” Lexington 1 Superintendent Keith Price said in a statement. “More students are graduating prepared for what comes next, and more of our schools are demonstrating strong academic performance. That progress matters because behind every percentage point is a student gaining more opportunities for the future.”
Columbia area’s top performing schools
In the Midlands, the highest-scoring high school in the rankings was Richland One Middle College, a charter school serving Richland 1 juniors and seniors on the Columbia campus of Midlands Tech, which had an “excellent” rating of 92.
It was followed by Spring Hill High School, a Chapin-area magnet school in Lexington-Richland 5 that had a rating of 84, also putting it in the “excellent” category. Spring Hill was followed by Lexington High at 79, Chapin High at 78 and River Bluff High School at 75. The state ranks any school that scores at 61 or above as “excellent.”
The top performing elementary school in the Midlands is Brockman Elementary School in Forest Acres, with a score of 71. Lakeside Middle was the area’s top middle school with a score of 63.
In the Chapin-Irmo area, Lexington-Richland 5 claimed the Midlands’ highest percentage of graduation-ready students and celebrated above-average rankings for both math and English language arts proficiency, the district said in a statement.
“These improvements represent the dedication of our teachers and staff, the determination of our students, and the partnership of our families,” said Lexington-Richland 5 Superintendent Akil Ross in a statement. “While we are proud of the progress we have made, we remain focused on building on this momentum and ensuring every student has the opportunity to demonstrate academic growth in our district.”
Statewide, the percentage of students leaving school who were assessed as college or career ready has increased from 61% in 2021 to almost 79% this past school year, the education department said, and graduation rates have increased in the same time frame from 83.3% to 87.5%.
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