Best Public Schools in Bahama, NC

Bahama, North Carolina is a small community served by just two schools: Mangum Elementary, a K-5 traditional public school in Durham Public Schools, and Discovery Charter, a 6-12 charter school run by the Discovery Charter School district. Because there is no standalone middle school in Bahama, families transitioning from fifth grade must either leave the city for a traditional middle school or choose Discovery Charter, which combines middle and high school grades.

For parents, Mangum Elementary is the clear stand-out. Despite serving a student population where 99% of children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, Mangum has earned a 4-star rating three years in a row and outperforms both the state and its entire district in every reported subject. For example, third-grade math proficiency at Mangum was about 84% compared to 66% statewide. It also outpaces its district by at least 14 percentage points on every single test, and its chronic absenteeism rate of 18% is half that of Durham Public Schools as a whole. Discovery Charter is a more mixed story: its sixth-through-eighth-grade scores are generally right at or above the state average, but its high-school EOC results in biology, English II, and Math III still trail the statewide averages.

The biggest reason for optimism at Discovery Charter is its rapid improvement. Between 2024-25 and 2025-26, the school jumped more than 20 points in 8th-grade science and made double-digit gains in several EOC subjects, meaning it is quickly closing the gap with the rest of the state. Attendance at both schools is also a positive: Discovery's chronic absenteeism is below the state average, and Mangum's is notably low given its high-poverty population. In short, Bahama families have two very different options: an exceptionally strong, high-poverty elementary school in Mangum, and a small charter school in Discovery that is academically competitive in the middle grades, improving quickly, but still working to match state averages at the high-school level.