Summary
Cardinal Charter Academy at Wendell Falls is a public charter school in Wendell, NC, serving 567 students in grades K-8, and it stands out as the only charter and K-8 school among a group of nearby traditional elementary schools that serve grades PK-5. In the 2025-2026 school year, the school ranked at the 54th percentile in North Carolina, a major rebound from a 1-star rating the prior year, and that improvement appeared across all student subgroups. Notably, the school's outcomes for African American and low-income students were relatively higher than its overall ranking, suggesting particular strength in serving those groups.
Cardinal serves a more economically mixed student body than most area schools - 57.3% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch, a rate similar to Lake Myra Elementary (55.4%), while several neighboring schools report rates above 98%. In attendance, Cardinal's chronic absenteeism rate of 20.9% is below the state average of 24.2%, though both Riverwood Elementary and Lake Myra do better. Academically, the school's Grade 3 results are excellent: 82.9% proficiency in math and 74.3% in reading, well above state averages and competitive with the best local schools. However, math proficiency falls below the state average in every grade from 4 through 8, and science also trails in grades 5 and 8, making middle-school math the clearest area for improvement.
Compared with its closest neighbor, Lake Myra, Cardinal comes out ahead in most tested elementary subjects, including large gaps in Grade 3 math and reading. But Riverwood, a 5-star school that posts high proficiency despite a 99.6% poverty rate, surpasses Cardinal in nearly every comparable subject, showing that top results are achievable even in high-poverty contexts. For families, the essential takeaway is that Cardinal now sits in the middle of the state distribution after several rough years, with a promising early-grade signal but a persistent upper-grade math challenge. If the school can sustain its broad-based gains - and improving attendance supports that trajectory - it could continue to climb.
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