Anderson County/Easley schools (Pickens: 2013, home, purchase)

[Kristen_Leigh1974]

Originally Posted by Kkirch123

We moved here in Aug and have been extremly happy. We live near smithfield. I can tell you the schools we have been impressed with. We are in the anderson county side of easley. We drive 10 minutes to stores but it is worth it. It really has alot to offer. If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

I have a job interview next week in Pickens. I have a toddler and am interested in learning about the school system and the best schools in the area. I hear the Wren schools are the best? Can anyone give me more information about the Easley area and if the Anderson County is the better side to live?

[Pelham3]

Originally Posted by Kristen_Leigh1974

I have a job interview next week in Pickens. I have a toddler and am interested in learning about the school system and the best schools in the area. I hear the Wren schools are the best? Can anyone give me more information about the Easley area and if the Anderson County is the better side to live?

The Easley schools are fine, there are just more lower income kids who go there and they tend to struggle in class and bring the school scores down. Don't just look at school scores because that tends to just reflect the percentage of kids from lower income families at the school, not the quality of the school.

The Wren schools do have best reputation but that is because a lot of physicians and upper middle class peole live in Powdersville. If having your kids around mostly kids from affluent families is important to you than Powdersville / Wren area is where you want to be. You could also look at north Anderson , the high school is T Hanna and pretty similar demographics to the Wren schools.

[WhitewaterVol]

Originally Posted by Kristen_Leigh1974

I have a job interview next week in Pickens. I have a toddler and am interested in learning about the school system and the best schools in the area. I hear the Wren schools are the best? Can anyone give me more information about the Easley area and if the Anderson County is the better side to live?

The Easley schools are in Pickens county and are okay.

Anderson County is actually broken up into several independent school districts. Wren High School is part of Anderson School District One. There are 3 high schools in that district. Palmetto High School, which is fed by several elementary schools that feed Palmetto Middle. Palmetto tends to be okay.

Wren is fed by two elementary schools that feed Wren Middle. Wren has historically been very good but they just split off half of its attendance zone and there aren't results for the new smaller attendance zone. I would expect Wren to still be a good school.

Powdersville High School is now in its third year and will graduate its first class this spring. It is fed by an elementary and primary school that feeds into Powdersville Middle School. The school hasn't been open long enough to have established itself but I would expect it to be very good to excellent.

I will admit some bias here as I have a child at Powdersville. After extensive research and asking friends and family when we moved to the area, that is where we chose to purchase a home and we have been very happy with the school. Most of the teachers are highly involved with the school and its students. My child's main complaint is that this school is harder than the one she attended before because most of the kids here care about their grades.

Would I prefer to have my child in a school with more kids from families that highly value education? Yes, I would.

They also have a very active extracurricular program (sports, chorus, band, etc., etc.)

One thing we also liked about the Anderson District One schools is they are smaller than say Easley or Hanna. Some people would prefer a larger school but we like the family atmosphere of the smaller school.

You might want to look at the SC school report cards: 2013 State Report Card - South Carolina Department of Education

I wouldn't use that as my only source of information but it can certainly help to weed out schools that are consistently poor performing.