Summary:
Duplin County Schools, a rural North Carolina district with five public high schools spanning grades 7 through 12, includes East Duplin High, James Kenan High, Wallace-Rose Hill High, North Duplin Junior Senior High, and Duplin Early College High. Every school serves an extremely high-poverty population, with free/reduced lunch rates ranging from 98.49 to 99.60 percent, and the district overall holds a 1-star rating. Yet school-level performance varies dramatically.
Duplin Early College High is the district's clear academic leader. It ranks in the 71st percentile with a 4-star rating and is the only school in the district to beat state averages on every End-of-Course exam, including a remarkable 90.7 percent proficiency in Math III. Parents should note that this is a small early-college school of 199 students that may have a selection process, so its results are not strictly comparable to traditional schools. Among the traditional schools, North Duplin Junior Senior High stands out: it earns a 3-star rating at the 51st percentile, has the highest graduation rate (89.0 percent), the lowest chronic absenteeism (13.4 percent), and beat the state in most middle school End-of-Grade subjects.
The other three schools represent the district's biggest challenges. Wallace-Rose Hill High ranks at the 10th percentile statewide—the lowest in the district—with the weakest End-of-Course scores: only 16.2 percent of its students are proficient in Math I and just 25.0 percent in Biology, despite having the highest per-pupil spending of the five schools at $12,968. James Kenan High has held a 1-star rating for three straight years and has the lowest graduation rate at 79.7 percent. East Duplin High, the largest school with 864 students, dropped sharply from the 37th to the 17th percentile in a single year, a decline worth watching. For parents, the clearest district-wide weakness is Math I proficiency, which remains far below state averages at the three low-performing schools.
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