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St. George, South Carolina - 6 schools
An equity score of 77/100 ranks Dorchester 04 #6 of 73 districts in South Carolina (state average 51). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $17,578 per pupil, Dorchester 04 ranks #10 of 74 South Carolina districts by per-pupil spending (South Carolina districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
2,027
Total Enrollment
6
Schools
$17,578
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, Middle
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Dorchester 04 operates 6 public schools serving 2,027 students, placing it among the smallest districts in South Carolina. The school portfolio breaks down into 3 combined, 2 middle, 1 high schools, a small enough portfolio that most families will interact with nearly every campus in the district at some point. These enrollment and school figures come from the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) 2024-25 release, and the district is based in Dorchester County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $17,578 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 74 South Carolina districts by per-pupil spending. See how South Carolina compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 38.1% local, 39.1% state, and 22.8% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one. The district's equity score is 77/100, ranked #6 of 73 in South Carolina against a state average of 51, notably more even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
Academic infrastructure includes 1 of 6 schools offering Advanced Placement (2 AP courses district-wide), a 229.4:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 42.2% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 46.5% African American, 34.4% White, 8.4% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Clay Hill Elementary, with a diversity index of 70.6/100.
Its largest campus is Woodland High, enrolling 680 students (32% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Harleyville-Ridgeville Middle, at 169 students, a 4x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Woodland High accounts for 32.3% of all Dorchester 04 student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Dorchester 04-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. Grade band: high. A single dominant campus often anchors a district's program offerings and staffing patterns; the share helps explain why district-wide averages may not reflect the typical neighbourhood-school experience. When one entity dominates a region's footprint, its programmatic and budget decisions effectively set policy for a majority of the affected population.
Dorchester 04 school enrollment varies 4.0× across entities
Dorchester 04 school enrollment ranges from 169 students (lowest) to 680 students (highest), a spread of 511 students. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually homogeneous campus portfolio, most districts have a wider mix of school sizes. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Dorchester 04 has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 100.0% of the population qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch
free or reduced-price lunch eligibility is the federal threshold for Title I funding allocations, established under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015). Eligibility here is a supermajority of the population — well past the 75% concentration-grant threshold that unlocks extra funding on top of the basic Title I formula. Regions with eligibility this high typically draw a substantially larger federal funding share relative to their local tax base, which can either offset or reinforce existing gaps depending on allocation policy.
Dorchester 04 student-counselor ratio is 229:1 — low (typically associated with meeting or exceeding the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommended 250:1 benchmark, which correlates with stronger college and career counseling capacity)
student-counselor ratio is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: the ratio counts FTE counselors against total enrollment, districts that contract intervention or social-emotional staff outside the counselor classification may be under-counted Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.
Dorchester 04 chronic absenteeism rate is 42.2% — well above typical (typically associated with unusually large scale or acute resource constraints)
chronic absenteeism rate is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: a student is chronically absent if they miss ≥10% of enrolled days for any reason, illness, family obligations, or disengagement Values this far above typical often signal acute resource constraints or a structurally different scale than most peers — worth reading alongside the underlying counts, not the ratio alone.