School Dist. 1 Preparing for Growth
Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer
The county’s second largest school district continues to excel in academics, athletics and extra-curricular activities, despite being the most constricted in funding, according to Anderson School Dist. 1 Superintendent Seth Young.
“We had a really, really good year,” said Young. “We've got great people in Anderson 1. Our students accomplished a lot of great things this past year.”
While preparing for the upcoming school year, the district is also looking at some major changes in 2025-2026.
Oak Hill Elementary will be opening in the summer of 2026, setting in motion a series of shifts in elementary school movement, including a redrawing of attendance lines for the district’s three elementary schools.
“When Oak Hill opens up, we're going to have three elementary schools offering kindergarten through fifth grade,” said Young. “Again, this is next summer. I don't want anybody to see this and think that things are shifting around now. This is next summer. But over the next few weeks we'll be finalizing attendance lines so families can know where their kids are going to be zoned.”
School Dist. 1 continues to face the greatest financial challenges in Anderson County, due to S.C. Act 388, significantly altered how public schools are funded in South Carolina. It effectively eliminated property taxes on owner-occupied homes for school operations, replacing that revenue with a one-cent statewide sales tax. It also shifted a significant property tax burden from homeowners to commercial and rental properties.
“Act 388 tightens our purse strings quite a bit in Anderson One,” said Young. “We are the lowest funded per pupil but we try to be really good stewards of the millage that that we that our taxpayers pay. The 86-87 percent goes directly to the classroom through teacher salaries and support.
Young said recently proposed developments, such as the 996-home Anderson Lake subdivision “are going to put a strain” on the timeline of being able to accommodate the anticipated growth with that many homes. “I think we know the types of families that move to Anderson One when there are properties available, and they move to Anderson I because of the school system.”
He said building a new elementary school would require $30-40 million, which would require asking voters to approve a bond for the project and take at least five years.
Young said he continues to be most proud of “the reputation of our schools in the community. “I literally just got off the phone with a graduate from one of our high schools who now lives in Atlanta who was telling me that he told his wife that when their three-month-old is five, they want to move back to the Upstate of South Carolina because there's just something special about Anderson One, and he wanted his kids to be in the Anderson One schools,” said Young. “And that sums it up. No matter which one of the 14, soon to be 15 schools you're a part of, we've got great schools, we've got great teachers, and because of that, we've got great students that want to be here.”
