Stanly County Virtual Education

Stanly County Virtual Education is a tiny alternative public school in Albemarle, NC, serving about 56 students in grades K–12 through Stanly County Schools. Because it is a virtual program, it offers nontraditional learning options like flexible pacing and credit recovery, which can make direct comparisons to brick-and-mortar schools misleading. There are no other individual schools within 20 miles providing publicly reported data, so the most useful benchmarks are the district average and North Carolina statewide averages.

In the most recent year, students at this school scored far below both the Stanly County district and the state in every tested subject. For example, 8th grade math proficiency was just 6.3%, compared with 53% statewide; reading, science, biology, and English II were all below 35%. The graduation rate for 2025–2026 was 63.6%, a steep drop from around 94% a few years earlier and well below the district rate of 88.4%. The school also appears to be serving a more economically disadvantaged population, with free/reduced-lunch eligibility rising from about 28% a few years ago to 44.6% in the most recent year.

These figures need to be interpreted carefully. With only 56 students, one or two additional students passing a test can swing percentages by 10–20 points from year to year. Earlier years showed stronger results in some areas, including an 8th grade reading score that nearly matched the district and a graduation rate above 93%. Still, the across-the-board academic gaps suggest the school is functioning largely as an at-risk or credit-recovery program, where students may already be behind when they enroll. However, the most recent available spending level was just $1,870 per student (2018–2019), which may mean limited resources for tutoring, counseling, or other supports that students in this setting often need.