Arapahoe Charter School

Arapahoe Charter School is a K-12 public charter school in the small, rural community of Arapahoe, NC, serving 498 students across all grade levels on one campus. Because it is a charter school, it operates as its own district, so the school's results are the district's results.

Arapahoe presents a "two-sided" academic picture. The school's greatest strength is in high school, where students far outperform the state on End-of-Course (EOC) exams. In the latest data, 92.9% of students passed Math III and 73.3% passed Math I, compared to state averages of 68.9% and 42.1% respectively. Biology and English II results also topped the state by nearly five points each. However, elementary and middle-grade performance is more mixed. Scores in 4th-grade math and reading, 5th-grade math, and 6th-grade reading all lag the state by roughly 13 to 19 percentage points. There are bright spots, such as strong results in 6th-grade math and 8th-grade reading and science, but the lower-grade challenges are consistent enough to warrant attention. In contrast, the nearest comparable school, Craven Virtual Academy, a much smaller virtual program in New Bern, posts significantly lower proficiency rates than Arapahoe in every subject where both have data.

The most urgent concern is chronic absenteeism, which has nearly doubled in recent years. After sitting below the state average at 21.1% in 2021-2022, Arapahoe's rate surged to 43.1% in the latest year, far exceeding the state's 24.2%. This is especially problematic given that roughly 87% of students now qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a sharp increase from 59% just two years prior. High economic need makes attendance outreach and family support critical. Additionally, the school's graduation rate is volatile—swinging from 92.3% to 76.5% in consecutive years—and its student-teacher ratio has risen to 15.8. Given the small size of each grade cohort, these metrics can shift dramatically from year to year, so they are best understood as trends over multiple years rather than one-time snapshots. For parents, this data suggests a school with proven high-school success that is currently grappling with attendance barriers that threaten its earlier-grade progress.