Pickens County charter school gets perfect score

The South Carolina Department of Education released letter grades for the state’s public schools yesterday based on student achievement and improvement during 2012-13. Pickens County’s only charter school, the Youth Leadership Academy, is one of 33 schools achieving a perfect score of 100. The letter grades were a key component of the state’s approved flexibility request from certain provisions of the No Child Left Behind law. The Youth Leadership Academy received its charter last fall for sixth and seventh grades. The school is operated through a partnership between the academy’s non-profit board—Clemson University’s Youth Learning Institute. And the academy is among eight public charter schools and 25 traditional schools statewide that received a perfect report card score. The Pickens charter school stresses science, technology, engineering and mathematics.