Riverside Leadership Academy

Riverside Leadership Academy is the only school in the Riverside Leadership Academy district, a single-school elementary district in New Bern, NC, serving grades K-7 with 374 students. The school earns a 2-star rating and currently ranks #992 out of 1,492 North Carolina schools, placing it in the 34th percentile statewide and #156 out of 246 districts. Because this is a single-school district, results reflect one specific group of students, making year-to-year changes particularly sensitive to individual cohorts.

The most striking pattern is the contrast between math and reading. In 2025-2026, the school's average math proficiency across tested grades was 45.5%, about 14 points below the state average of 59.9%. The most concerning result is 4th grade math, where only 29.2% of students are proficient compared to 61.4% statewide. Reading tells a much more positive story: the school's average reading proficiency was 54.0% versus 56.0% statewide, and in the upper grades students actually outperform the state. Seventh grade reading stands out with 68% proficient versus 56.3% statewide, and 6th grade reaches 59.2% versus 54.8%. One dramatic change worth noting is 5th grade science, which jumped from 22.9% proficiency in 2024-2025 to 76.1% in 2025-2026, likely reflecting a different cohort rather than a schoolwide transformation.

Attendance is a mild concern: chronic absenteeism sits at 26.4%, about 2.2 points above the state rate of 24.2%, representing roughly 99 students out of 374. Socioeconomic and staffing context is unavailable, since free/reduced lunch and student-teacher ratio data were not reported. Families should also be aware of a data inconsistency: the school is listed as serving grades K-7, yet 8th-grade test results appear in the most recent data, so those scores should be interpreted cautiously until the school's actual grade configuration is confirmed. Overall, Riverside Leadership Academy is strongest in upper-grade reading and weakest in math, so parents of students struggling in math should look for additional support, while reading instruction, especially in grades 6 and 7, appears to be a genuine bright spot.