Horry County Schools reports reading gains, sets new goals after board-funded literacy push

Horry County Schools staff told the Curriculum Committee that targeted board funding and a districtwide literacy effort tied to LETRS professional development have coincided with measurable gains on spring formative assessments and a substantial reduction in third-grade students at risk of retention.

Neil James, presenting formative-assessment results, said the district uses NWEA MAP in elementary grades and I-Ready in middle grades, with both tools correlated to the SC Ready state test. He reported that CTE seniors met or exceeded statewide Perkins benchmarks and that, across elementary grades, students showed accelerated reading growth on the spring administration.

“Historically, Horry County Schools has consistently met or exceeded state expectations,” James said, and he called out the district’s four-year CTE graduation rate. On third-grade reading specifically, district staff told the committee they set a goal after funds were approved in February to reduce the number of students at risk of retention from 643 to 406. As of the spring MAP administration, James reported, 399 third-grade students remained at risk — a decline the presenters described as a substantial improvement. James said the district is establishing a new goal to reduce that number by roughly another 100 students before the state’s SC Ready test in May and will offer summer reading camp opportunities.

Board members credited targeted funding and local autonomy for school-level interventions. Pam Dawson noted the funds that supported that work were $700,000, which she identified as about 2% of unallocated monies; board members said allowing principals latitude to design programs tailored to each school’s needs contributed to the results.

District presenters emphasized the “science of reading” and the LETRS professional-development program. Neil James and other staff described plans to build a literacy committee led by Superintendent Mr. Jones to standardize exemplary early-literacy instruction, develop a sustainability plan for LETRS training for new teachers, design monitoring to ensure implementation, and annually review curriculum supports.

Staff also presented middle-school results. James said more than 60% of sixth- through eighth-grade students met or exceeded growth targets in reading on the I-Ready diagnostic, but he and board members expressed concern about middle-school math achievement levels. A board comment noted that a similar percentage that meets growth targets can mask lower absolute achievement: “If you put it on our web page, the general public looks at it. They see two identical numbers,” a board member said, and asked staff to return with mean-score or actual-score displays that better reflect incremental progress.

The committee directed staff to analyze alignment among standards, assessments and instruction in middle-school math and to prepare visuals that show both growth and absolute achievement so the public can see progress more clearly. No formal policy changes or new budget commitments were adopted during the meeting; presenters and board members described ongoing implementation and follow-up steps.

Ending: District staff and board members applauded teachers, parents and students for the literacy progress and set follow-up tasks: refine public-facing data displays, continue LETRS implementation and monitor summer-reading and middle-school math interventions.