Summary
Stanfield Elementary, a K–5 school in the small community of Stanfield, NC, serves about 483 students within Stanly County Schools. The school currently ranks in the 63rd percentile statewide with a 3-star rating—solidly above average, but below a number of nearby elementary schools in the region. Virtually all students qualify for free/reduced lunch (99.38%), and the school’s most encouraging trend is its steady climb up the state rankings, from the 38th percentile in 2022–2023 to the 50th, 57th, and now 63rd percentile over the past three years.
The clearest academic strength is 3rd-grade math, where 85.5% of students are proficient compared with 66.4% statewide. Fifth-grade science is strong too, with 73.2% proficient, above both district and state averages. The school also gets good results with its low-income students, ranking at the 71st percentile, so it is largely doing right by the students it serves. Results are uneven across grades, though: 4th-grade math proficiency falls to 57.4%, below both the district and state, and reading scores in 4th and 5th grade sit near the state average. That is a meaningful difference from nearby Locust Elementary, a same-district school only 2.3 miles away with a similar share of low-income students; Locust ranks at the 85th percentile and does clearly better in upper-grade math and reading.
Attendance is moving in the right direction: chronic absenteeism dropped from 29.6% in 2021–2022 to 16.4%, now better than the district average (19.7%) and state average (24.2%). Even so, Locust Elementary’s rate is 11.4%, and Oakboro Choice STEM sits at just 5.3%, so more attendance gains are possible. The other notable soft spot is the gifted/talented subgroup, which ranks at the 23rd percentile even as other subgroups have improved. All told, Stanfield is an above-average, improving school. The next push should be about consistency—stronger upper-grade reading and math, more support for advanced learners, and fewer missed school days.
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