Summary:
Wilmington Preparatory Academy is the only school in the Wilmington Preparatory Academy district, serving 91 students in Kindergarten through Grade 8 in Wilmington, NC. Though North Carolina categorizes the school as an elementary school, it operates as a K-8 school with a student-teacher ratio of 7.7, meaning relatively small class sizes. Attendance is a clear strength: only 5.5% of students are chronically absent, well below the state average of 24.2%.
Academically, however, the school is struggling severely. Wilmington Preparatory Academy currently ranks 1487 out of 1492 schools statewide for 2025-2026, placing it in the bottom 1% with a 0-star rating. That is a major drop from the previous school year, when it ranked 1108 out of 1490 and earned 1 star. Average math proficiency in grades 3-7 is just 17.8% compared with the state average of 61.2%, while reading proficiency averages 33.7% versus 55.9% statewide. Looking grade by grade, nearly every subject trails badly, including 3rd grade math at 8.3%, 6th grade math at 7.1%, and 5th grade science at 33.3% versus the state's 67.7%.
There are some positive findings worth noting. Seventh grade reading proficiency is 61.5%, which is above the state average of 56.3%, and 7th grade math, at 38.5%, is the school's strongest math result. Low chronic absenteeism and a favorable student-teacher ratio suggest that students are showing up and have access to small classes, so the problem is not simply attendance. The biggest area of urgency is mathematics, which lags at every grade level and needs schoolwide, targeted intervention. Parents should also keep in mind that with only 91 students, each grade-level percentage represents a very small number of children, so scores can shift dramatically from one year to the next as cohorts move through the school.
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