Oaks Road Academy

Oaks Road Academy is a PK–5 elementary school in New Bern, NC, serving 352 students within the Craven County Board of Education district, where 96% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school currently ranks 1,444th of 1,492 North Carolina elementary schools — landing in the 3rd percentile with 0 stars and representing its lowest state ranking in at least a decade.

Academic performance on state End-of-Grade assessments falls well below district and state averages in every subject and grade level. For example, 3rd grade math proficiency is 40% compared to 67.6% for the district and 66.4% statewide, while 3rd grade reading proficiency is 25% versus 49% and 55.6%, respectively. The widest gap appears in 5th grade science, where only 31.3% of students are proficient compared to 64.3% for the district and 67.7% for the state. Proficiency also declined in most subjects from the prior year, and students in nearly every subgroup measured are performing far below their peers statewide. One bright spot is chronic absenteeism, which dropped from 48% in 2020–2021 to 19.5% in 2024–2025 — now better than the state average of 24.2%.

The most instructive comparisons come from nearby schools serving similar populations. J.T. Barber Elementary, just 0.6 miles away, ranks in the 27th percentile, while Trent Park Elementary (1.5 miles) and Bridgeton Elementary (2.3 miles) rank in the 39th and 38th percentiles. Even more striking, Albert H Bangert Elementary serves a higher poverty population (98.88%) yet ranks in the 82nd percentile, and Brinson Memorial Elementary (97.5% poverty) and Ben D. Quinn Elementary (93.9% poverty) both rank in the 55th percentile. Since neighboring high-poverty schools achieve far stronger results, poverty alone does not explain Oaks Road's performance — pointing to real opportunity for improvement through stronger instructional practices and targeted academic intervention.