Summary:
Caswell County Schools is served by just one middle school, N L Dillard Middle in Yanceyville, NC, which enrolls 432 students in grades 6–8. Since it is the district’s only middle school, its test scores are the same as the district’s middle-grades results, making state averages the only meaningful point of comparison.
N L Dillard Middle ranks very low statewide, placing 729th out of 778 North Carolina middle schools (6th percentile, 0 stars) in the 2025–2026 ranking, after ranking in the 9th and 12th percentiles the two previous years. The school serves an almost entirely economically disadvantaged student body, with 99.31% of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and its 34.8% chronic absenteeism rate runs well above both the district (29.8%) and state (24.2%) figures. Academic proficiency is consistently far below state averages across every grade and subject, with gaps of roughly 19 to 31 percentage points in the most recent testing year. For instance, 6th-grade reading proficiency sits at 24.2% versus the state’s 54.8%, and 8th-grade science stands at 37.5% versus the state’s 68.6%.
Two trends stand out in the data. First, reading proficiency rises steadily with grade level—from 24.2% in 6th grade to 36.8% in 8th grade in 2025–2026—suggesting possible literacy growth as students progress, though even the highest rate remains about 19 points below the state average. Second, 8th-grade science proficiency fell sharply from 52.6% in 2024–2025 to 37.5% in 2025–2026, a 15.1-point drop that widened the gap with the state from 7.5 to 31.1 points. With per-pupil spending of $10,442, persistent bottom-decile rankings, near-universal poverty, and high absenteeism, N L Dillard Middle faces serious challenges, but the upward reading trend across grades offers a potential area of strength worth investigating further.
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