Haliwa-Saponi Tribal School

Haliwa-Saponi Tribal School is a very small K-12 alternative school in Hollister, NC, serving about 140 students and operating as the sole campus in the Haliwa-Saponi Tribal School district. Around 98% of its students come from economically disadvantaged households, and as a tribally affiliated rural school, it provides cultural and community roles that test scores cannot capture. Still, the data show genuine strengths in middle school reading as well as serious concerns with attendance and high school achievement.

The most striking concern is chronic absenteeism. More than half of students (52%) were chronically absent in 2024-2025 — over twice the state rate of 24.2% and well above the 35.2% at nearby Rocky Mount Preparatory. That likely helps explain why only about 9% of Haliwa-Saponi students were proficient in Biology or English II, and roughly 6-7% in Math I or Math III; Rocky Mount Prep students scored between 57% and 72% on those same exams. Yet the school is not failing everywhere: 8th grade reading proficiency reached 50% in 2025-2026, ahead of Rocky Mount Prep’s 39.7% and within six points of the state. Several other middle school reading and math scores have recently been competitive with that comparable school as well.

A welcome structural advantage is the 14.4 student-teacher ratio — far better than Rocky Mount Prep’s 24.1 — and class sizes small enough for personal attention, though that advantage has not yet produced stronger results. With only 10 to 15 students per grade, one student can shift a rate by many points, so year-to-year changes can look dramatic. Graduation rates have ranged from 57% to 79%, never nearing the state average. For parents, Haliwa-Saponi Tribal School offers an intimate, culturally rooted environment with solid middle school reading outcomes, but high school performance and attendance levels deserve a closer look.