Summary:
School Connections Academy is a public charter virtual school located in Columbia, South Carolina, serving grades K-12 with a total enrollment of 6,263 students. It is part of the Charter Institute at Erskine district, which is ranked 34 out of 75 districts in the state and has a 3-star rating from SchoolDigger.
While School Connections Academy has a higher percentage of white students (62.17%) compared to the surrounding schools, it generally performs below the state and district averages in most subject areas and grade levels, particularly in mathematics. For example, in 2023-2024, only 30.5% of 3rd graders at School Connections Academy were proficient or better in SC READY Mathematics, compared to the state average of 54.5%. Additionally, the school has a relatively high percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, ranging from 43.16% to 50.33% over the past three school years, which is higher than the state average. The school's spending per student has also decreased from $7,895 in 2021-2022 to $6,043 in 2022-2023, which is lower than the state average, and it has a relatively high student-teacher ratio, ranging from 28.3 to 32.9 over the past three school years.
Interestingly, South Carolina Virtual Charter School, another virtual charter school in the same district, generally outperforms School Connections Academy on test scores, particularly in mathematics and English language arts. These disparities in test scores and resource allocation between School Connections Academy and the surrounding schools, as well as the higher-performing virtual charter school, raise questions about equity and access to quality education for the students at School Connections Academy.
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