Career Readiness Academy at Mosley PLC

Career Readiness Academy at Mosley PLC is a small high school in Wilmington, North Carolina, serving roughly 150 students in grades 9–12 through New Hanover County Schools. Nearly all of its students — about 98 percent — come from low-income households, yet the school is unusually well-resourced: the student-teacher ratio is a very low 10.2, and per-pupil spending is roughly $21,178, about 2.4 times the spending at nearby Emsley A Laney High, John T Hoggard High, and Eugene Ashley High.

The school has been improving. In the most recent reported year, it ranked 448th out of 662 North Carolina high schools (32nd percentile) and earned two stars — its best ranking in more than a decade. Test scores rose in every End-of-Course subject compared with the prior year, with Biology, English II, and Math I now close to state averages. The biggest exception is Math III: only about 41 percent of students scored proficient versus roughly 69 percent statewide, a gap that matters for college or a math-heavy career path. The four-year graduation rate has also climbed to 85.7 percent, above nearby New Hanover High and Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington, though still below the state average of 88.8 percent.

The most urgent concern for parents is attendance. Chronic absenteeism jumped from under 8 percent in 2022–23 to 42 percent in 2024–25, far above district and state averages of about 24 percent. That contrasts sharply with other high-poverty schools: SEA-Technical and Wilmington Early College High both serve mostly low-income students and report chronic absenteeism below 9 percent. On a positive note, the school's economically disadvantaged students ranked in the 67th percentile statewide, suggesting it does relatively well for its core population. And because this is a career-focused school, test-based rankings may not fully capture credentials and work-based learning. Still, attendance and math proficiency are the two areas most likely to determine whether these gains hold.