Best Public Schools in Ferguson, NC

The city of Ferguson, North Carolina, is served by a single school, Mount Pleasant Elementary School, which educates students from pre-kindergarten through 5th grade and operates within the Wilkes County Schools district. With 237 students and nearly 99% eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, this is a high-poverty school, yet it showed notable academic recovery in 2025-2026 after a difficult prior year. Because Ferguson has no other schools, parents should view this school's performance as the sole indicator for the area, and comparisons are best made against district and state averages rather than other local schools.

The most striking story is the dramatic improvement in 5th grade. Math proficiency soared from 43.3% to 75%, and reading jumped from 33.3% to 58.3%, with both exceeding district and state averages in 2025-2026. That is a remarkable achievement given the high poverty level. The school's statewide ranking also rebounded from the 29th percentile (1 star) in 2024-2025 to the 54th percentile (3 stars) in 2025-2026, though it remains below its 61st percentile showing from 2023-2024. However, lower grades still struggle: 3rd grade math (56.3%) and reading (53.1%) both trail the district and state, and 4th grade math and reading remain slightly below average. These gaps suggest that early elementary support may need attention even as upper grades excel.

Chronic absenteeism affects 19.2% of students, which is better than the state rate of 24.2% but worse than the district's 16.9%. With such a small student body, year-to-year ranking swings can be misleading, as a single strong or weak cohort can shift results significantly. Also, since there are no middle or high schools in Ferguson, students will transition elsewhere in Wilkes County after 5th grade, meaning parents cannot judge long-term outcomes locally. The most recent per-student spending figure ($11,075) is from 2018-2019, so it is unclear how current funding compares. Overall, Mount Pleasant Elementary demonstrates that high-poverty schools can achieve strong upper-elementary results, but sustaining that success across all grades remains the key challenge.