Wellcome Middle

Wellcome Middle is a grades 6–8 school in Greenville, NC, serving 391 students in Pitt County Schools. Statewide, the school ranks 603rd of 778 North Carolina middle schools — the 22nd percentile — earning a 1-star rating that places it in the bottom quarter of the state. Nearly all students (99.2%) qualify for free/reduced-price lunch. Academically, Wellcome trails the district and state in nearly every tested grade and subject; the lone exception is 8th-grade science, where 55.6% of students score proficient, while most other subjects fall between 35% and 44% proficiency.

Compared with nearby middle schools, Wellcome ranks at the bottom of its district peer group. The contrast with Hope Middle, located 11.6 miles away in the same district, is especially striking: Hope serves nearly the same high-poverty population (99.7% free/reduced lunch) yet ranks in the 94th percentile statewide, with 77–88% proficiency in math and reading. What's more, Wellcome spends more per student ($11,038 versus Hope's $8,349) and has a lower student-teacher ratio. Similar poverty, greater resources, and far lower results point to instructional quality, attendance outreach, and school culture as the real levers for change.

There are signs of momentum. Chronic absenteeism has dropped from 40.4% in 2022-23 to 28.6%, and 6th-grade reading proficiency has more than doubled from 17.3% to 34.9% over the same period. Subgroup data also reveal genuine pockets of strength: African American students now perform at the 51st percentile of their statewide peers (up from the 20th percentile two years earlier), English learners at the 57th, and gifted students at the 63rd. These bright spots show that Wellcome's low overall ranking is not inevitable — and suggest the school's next step is expanding the practices that already work for some students to the whole building.