Summary:
King, North Carolina, is served by five public schools in the Stokes County Schools district: three elementary schools — King Elementary School, Mount Olive Elementary School, and Poplar Springs Elementary School — plus Chestnut Grove Middle School and West Stokes High School, enrolling 2,655 students total. The district holds a 2-star rating at the 40th percentile statewide, but King's schools range from the 18th to the 83rd percentile, showing far more variation than the district average suggests.
Mount Olive Elementary School is the clear top performer: it ranks in the 83rd percentile (4 stars) and posts math proficiency between 79.5% and 82.4% in grades 3–5, well above state averages, even though about 99% of its students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Poplar Springs Elementary School is consistently strong too, ranking in the 70th percentile with a 4-star rating and beating district averages in nearly every subject. Chestnut Grove Middle School ranks in the 71st percentile and excels in math and science, with 72% proficiency in 8th grade math and 78.7% in 8th grade science. West Stokes High School posts a 93.9% graduation rate and exceeds state averages on most End-of-Course exams, with the city's lowest chronic absenteeism at 13.4%.
The biggest concern is King Elementary School, which fell from the 51st percentile in 2023-24 to the 18th percentile in 2025-26, a sustained two-year slide. Its proficiency rates trail district and state averages in every grade and subject, especially reading. Strikingly, it spends the most per student ($12,007) and has the lowest student-teacher ratio (12.2), yet still performs the worst academically. Meanwhile, Chestnut Grove Middle School has the highest chronic absenteeism rate at 25.8% but still posts strong results. King's schools prove that high poverty does not determine performance, and the wide range across just five schools underscores the value of looking beyond district-level ratings.
Thank you for your feedback!