Fort Mill School District (FMSD) continued to focus on excellence during the 2025-2026 school year. Our intentional work around culture, commitment, collaboration, and continuous improvement is key to providing a high-quality education for our students. FMSD has the largest enrollment among all four York County school districts in spite of being the smallest geographic district in the state, encompassing 53 square miles.
The Fort Mill School District continues to focus on providing an engaging and rigorous education that empowers all of our students to achieve their greatest success. As we challenge and inspire our students to meet and exceed their greatest potential, we are simultaneously creating a better community for all of our citizens. We will continue our work of preparing all students to acquire the world class academic, life, and career skills included in the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate. Our instructional delivery systems and curricular offerings continue to adapt to meet the demands of a rapidly changing environment.
We continue to greatly expand the number of Dual Credit and advanced level courses available to our students. We know our students deserve the best opportunities to pursue their passions, and we are excited to have added multiple pathways to help them in their journey. During the 2025-2026 school year our students completed over 4,300 college courses. This is an increase from 2,293 college courses in the 2024-2025 school year. Additionally, our students completed 2,633 AP courses, which was an increase of 218 AP courses from the year before. Our scores continue to increase as enrollment in these challenging courses expands.
The district’s commitment to advancing the learning of all students continues to permeate school culture. This is seen in our Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), STEAM, and literacy initiatives. A comprehensive MTSS system empowers all students by addressing their academic, social, emotional, and behavioral needs through a data-driven process that identifies risk factors. As part of the Read to Succeed Plan, all teachers and administrators are learning and implementing effective reading instructional strategies across the curriculum. Our STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) effort includes school-based leadership development, technology and curriculum integration, and community/parent partnerships. FMSD’s digital learning, STEAM, and literacy initiatives positively impact student engagement and ultimately prepare our students for college, career, and citizenship.
We are in the fourth year of our District Strategic Plan and we continue to align resources to meet our lofty goals. One of the data points that we are most proud of is our on-time graduation rate of 95.7%. We also know this is not just a high school outcome. Our entire school system is responsible for this accomplishment.
Individual and student awards were too numerous to mention, but several deserve special recognition. Over $67 million in scholarships were awarded to our high school graduates. The Fort Mill School District was the highest rated district in almost all standardized testing categories. Our AP and SAT scores continue to outpace the national average.
Throughout the year, our district and many of our individual schools were recognized for various achievements. River Trail Elementary was named a Model PLC School. Springfield Elementary was named a NAESP Gold Star School. Catawba Ridge High, Pleasant Knoll Elementary and Tega Cay Elementary were named Blue Ribbon Lighthouse Schools.
Our school district was named the best in the State by Niche and was rated among the top 1% of districts nationwide. We were proud of our multiple state championship sports teams and our award-winning band and JROTC programs.
We are proud of the awards and recognitions we have received during the school year. It is always nice for our hard-working teachers, staff and community to receive the recognition they deserve. However, we are most proud of the work our district and community are doing to prepare our students to reach and exceed their dreams.
Grey Young, Superintendent
