Best Public Schools in Willard, NC

Willard, North Carolina, has exactly one public school in its data set: Penderlea Elementary, a PK-8 school serving 468 students in Pender County Schools. Although it carries an "elementary" name, the school includes grades through 8th, functioning as both the local elementary and middle school. No high school or alternative school is listed within Willard, so students transition elsewhere in Pender County after 8th grade.

Since Penderlea is the only school in Willard, the most useful comparisons are against its district and the state. The school has shown consistent improvement: its state percentile rank rose from the 32nd in 2023-24 to the 35th in 2024-25 and then to the 45th in 2025-26, climbing roughly 200 positions among the 1,492 ranked North Carolina schools over two years. Still, its two-star rating reflects that it remains below the state median. Penderlea serves an exceptionally high-poverty population — 99.36 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch — and its chronic absenteeism rate of 28.6 percent is about four percentage points higher than both the district rate of 24.5 percent and the state rate of 24.2 percent.

The academic data tells a clear story. In 2025-26, Penderlea's average proficiency across tested grades was about 60.5 percent in math — essentially tying the state average — and 72.0 percent in science, which topped the state average. Reading lagged at just 46.3 percent, roughly 10 points behind both district and state. The gap is widest in 3rd grade reading, where 35.4 percent of students were proficient versus 56.1 percent for the district and 55.6 percent statewide. Encouragingly, the school beat state averages in 5th and 8th grade math and science, and several grades posted large one-year gains between 2024-25 and 2025-26, including 8th grade science jumping from 38.5 to 70.6 percent proficient and 5th grade math rising from 56.5 to 75.6 percent. The bottom line for parents is that Penderlea is a steadily improving school with real strengths in math and science, but early-grade literacy and chronic absenteeism remain the key challenges to watch.