Buckland Elementary

Buckland Elementary is a K-5 school in Gates, North Carolina, serving 220 students in the rural northeastern part of the state as part of Gates County Schools. The school holds a 2-star rating and ranks at the 46th percentile statewide, squarely in the middle of North Carolina's 1,492 elementary schools, though it is the lowest-ranked of its district's three elementary schools.

That mid-tier ranking masks sharp regional differences. Buckland is surrounded by some of the state's lowest-performing schools: Riverview Elementary sits at the 1st percentile, Ahoskie Elementary at the 4th, and Colerain Elementary at the 14th — all in the Hertford County Schools and Bertie County Schools districts. Buckland easily outperforms all three. But within Gates County, it trails both T S Cooper Elementary (78th percentile) and Gatesville Elementary (57th percentile), despite serving a lower percentage of low-income students than either. A likely factor: chronic absenteeism has climbed at Buckland every year since 2020-21, from 8.6% to 27.9% — now above the state average and higher than both district peers.

Academically, students tend to start strong but fade by upper elementary. Third-grade math proficiency was 78.8%, well above the state's 66.4%, and fourth-grade math also topped state averages. But fifth-grade math slipped below state norms, and reading proficiency ran about ten points below the state average in both fourth and fifth grades. There is encouraging momentum, though: low-income students improved from the 23rd to the 44th percentile in statewide subgroup rankings over the past two years, and male students jumped from the 28th to the 58th percentile over the same stretch. If Buckland can turn that progress into better attendance and stronger upper-grade reading, it stands a real chance of climbing back near the top of its district.