Best Public Schools in Enfield, NC

The city of Enfield, North Carolina, is served by three public schools in the Halifax County Schools district—two elementary schools and one middle school—that together educate about 549 students in a high-poverty area where roughly 98% of children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and chronic absenteeism runs far above the state average.

Among these schools, Inborden Elementary S.T.E.A.M. Academy is the strongest academic performer. It has the highest state percentile rank (25th), the lowest chronic absenteeism rate (38.3%), and posted excellent 3rd grade results: 66.7% proficiency in math and 57.6% in reading, both matching or beating the state average while far exceeding district figures. Notably, Inborden achieves this while spending about $14,009 per student—roughly $4,000 less than Pittman Elementary Leadership Academy, which spends the most ($18,006 per student) yet has the lowest percentile rank (13th) and no test scores reaching state averages. Enfield Middle S.T.E.A.M. Academy sits in between but shows the most dramatic improvement: its percentile rank jumped from 8th to 18th in one year, with 8th grade math proficiency (55.6%) climbing above the state average (53.0%) and 6th grade math rising from 20% to 52.7%.

Several patterns stand out across these schools. Strong 3rd grade performance tends to fade by 5th grade—for example, Inborden’s 3rd grade math proficiency of 66.7% drops to 43.6% by 5th grade, while Pittman’s falls from 52.2% to 37.5%. Enfield Middle has a striking weak spot in 7th grade math, where only 19.3% of students are proficient compared with 52.7% in 6th and 55.6% in 8th grade. Chronic absenteeism is a systemic crisis, ranging from 38.3% at Inborden to 45.3% at Enfield Middle versus the state’s 24.2%. And while higher spending does not guarantee better outcomes—Pittman’s high per-student cost has not translated into academic success—the steady gains at Enfield Middle and Pittman (which moved from the 7th to 13th percentile) show that progress is possible even within a district ranked near the bottom of North Carolina.