Summary:
Grover, North Carolina, is served by just one public school, Grover Elementary, a PK–4 elementary school with 323 students in the Cleveland County Schools district. Because there are no middle or high schools inside Grover city limits, families should expect students to transition to schools outside the city after 4th grade.
Grover Elementary is a notable standout given that it is a high-poverty school with a 99.07% free/reduced lunch rate, yet it consistently earns 4 stars from SchoolDigger and ranks in the top quarter of North Carolina elementary schools. In the most recent testing year (2025–2026), 4th grade math proficiency reached 80%, far exceeding the district’s 68.8% and the state’s 61.4%. Similarly, 4th grade reading hit 73.3% versus 61.5% for the district and 57.7% statewide. The school’s statewide percentile has slipped only slightly over three years, from the 80th percentile (2023–2024) to the 79th (2024–2025) and 77th (2025–2026). Third grade performance is more mixed: math is slightly below the district (68% vs. 72%) but above the state, while reading barely edges out both benchmarks. Looking at the same cohort of students as they moved from 3rd to 4th grade, math proficiency dropped by 4.7 points (from 84.7% to 80%), while reading stayed roughly flat — a reminder that even strong schools face cohort-to-cohort changes.
One area of concern is chronic absenteeism: 26.0% of Grover Elementary students were chronically absent, which is higher than the district’s 23.2% and the state’s 24.2%. Since attendance strongly affects learning, reducing that rate could help boost already respectable proficiency scores even higher. Spending data is outdated at $10,632 per student (2018–2019), so it should be interpreted cautiously. Overall, Grover Elementary appears to be doing meaningful work in supporting economically disadvantaged students, with particular strength in 4th grade math and reading, but attendance and early-grade performance are worth watching closely.
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