Middle Schools in Carteret County Public Schools

The four middle schools serving grades 6-8 in Carteret County, North Carolina, include Broad Creek Middle, Morehead City Middle, Newport Middle, and Beaufort Middle, and together they enroll 1,834 students within the Carteret County Public Schools district.

Broad Creek Middle is the clear academic leader in the district, with an average EOG proficiency of 80.5%, a 92nd-percentile state rank, and a remarkable 94.2% proficiency rate in 7th-grade math. Morehead City Middle is the most consistent performer, holding a steady 4-star rating and ranking in the 77th-78th percentile, with its strongest improvement coming in 8th-grade reading. Beaufort Middle and Newport Middle also have encouraging trajectories: Beaufort has quietly climbed from the 66th to the 75th percentile over three years, while Newport posted the most dramatic turnaround in the county, jumping from the 50th to the 74th percentile in a single year. Newport’s 8th-grade science scores surged by 26.7 points, yet its 8th-grade math proficiency remains notably weak at 53.4%.

A key takeaway for families is that socioeconomic factors create a structural divide. While Broad Creek serves a student body with only 30.1% economic disadvantage, the other three schools have free/reduced lunch rates above 98.8%. Despite this, all three high-poverty schools outperform the state average of 57.7% and outrank most schools statewide, indicating the district is getting above-expected results. Broad Creek also has the lowest chronic absenteeism rate at 11.6%, while Newport carries the highest at 22.6%. Interestingly, the high-poverty schools all spend more per student and maintain smaller class sizes than Broad Creek, yet the achievement gap persists—suggesting demographic context plays a strong role. For parents, Broad Creek Middle offers the strongest overall academics, while Beaufort Middle and Newport Middle are the district’s most improved and worth watching.