Cardinal Charter

Cardinal Charter is a single-school district in Cary, NC, serving grades K-8 through Cardinal Charter Academy, a public charter school with 584 students. The school generally outperforms North Carolina state averages, but its most recent results show a notable step back, with district-level rankings (4 stars, 75th percentile) looking stronger than the school’s current 3-star, 62nd-percentile ranking. The school’s brightest spot is 8th-grade science, where 84.6% of students were proficient in 2025–2026 versus 68.6% statewide, and 8th-grade reading also remains a consistent strength (68.4% vs. 56.1%). Three of six math grade levels and four of six reading grade levels beat the state average, with 3rd-grade math particularly strong at 82.1% proficiency.

However, the recent year revealed sharp declines in specific grades. Most concerning is 7th-grade math, which plummeted from 75.5% proficiency in 2024–2025 (22 points above the state) to 47.4% in 2025–2026 (now below the state average). Similarly, 5th-grade science fell from slightly above the state to 58.2% versus the state’s 67.7%, and 4th-grade reading dropped from 70.8% to 54.5%, dipping below the state average. Because the school has only roughly 60–70 students per grade, these swings may reflect cohort differences more than lasting program changes. Overall, the school’s combined proficiency advantage over the state shrank from +11.4 points to +4.4 points in just one year, even though it remains above the statewide mean in math, reading, and science on average.

Notably, nearly half of students (47.4%) qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, yet the school still beats the state on most measures. Chronic absenteeism affects 20.8% of students—better than the statewide 24.2%, but still an academic risk factor. One caution: the reported student-teacher ratio of 45.1:1 is extremely unusual and likely a data error, so it should not be used for staffing judgments. For parents, Cardinal Charter Academy offers strong upper-grade science and overall above-average performance, but the middle-grade math decline and grade-level volatility are worth watching closely in future years.