Beaufort Elementary vs Coosa Elementary

Coosa Elementary ranks #3 of 1,176 elementary schools in South Carolina, earning a 9.5/10 overall rating. Beaufort Elementary sits at #50 of 1,176 statewide — a strong result in its own right, but 0.9 points behind Coosa on the overall scale. Both schools serve the same PK–05 grade span and sit just 2.3 miles apart in Beaufort, so the choice comes down to meaningful differences in academics, demographics, and classroom structure rather than geography or program access.

The sharpest gap between the two schools is academic performance. Coosa Elementary scores 9.4/10 in academics versus Beaufort Elementary's 7.5/10 — a 1.9-point difference that reflects a substantially wider proficiency gap in tested subjects. Growth scores are closer: Coosa Elementary earns a 9.5/10 on student growth and Beaufort Elementary earns a 9.0/10, meaning educators at both schools are moving students forward effectively, but Coosa's students enter with higher demonstrated proficiency and continue outpacing state peers at a slightly faster rate.

The demographic contrast is significant. Beaufort Elementary enrolls 376 students with 100% qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, making it one of the highest-need schools in the district. Coosa Elementary enrolls 449 students with 47% qualifying — closer to the state median. The trade-off shows up in staffing: Beaufort Elementary's student-teacher ratio is 8.2:1 versus Coosa Elementary's 11.5:1. That smaller ratio at Beaufort likely reflects Title I resource allocation, giving teachers there considerably more individual contact time per student despite serving a far more economically challenged population.

Both schools cover PK through grade 5 and are located within the same city, so program structure at the grade and level layer is comparable. The differentiating factor for families is whether they prioritize raw academic outcomes and a peer environment with higher average proficiency (Coosa Elementary), or individualized attention and a school explicitly resourced for high-need students where a 9.0/10 growth score signals that teachers are consistently outperforming expectations given their starting point (Beaufort Elementary).