Columbia High

Columbia High is a small rural high school in Columbia, NC, serving about 176 students in grades 9–12 as part of Tyrrell County Schools. Nearly all students (98%) qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, yet the school maintains a favorable student-teacher ratio of about 12:1 with roughly $17,784 in per-pupil spending.

Columbia High's most urgent issue is attendance: in 2024-25, about 47% of students were chronically absent — nearly double the state's 24.2% rate and far above the 5.5% rate at nearby Washington Early College High. Academically, the picture is mixed. The school has beaten the state average in Math III for three consecutive years, reaching 86.4% proficiency in 2025-26 (state: 68.9%). However, Biology proficiency was just 25% (state: 58.5%) and Math I proficiency was 26.3% (state: 42.1%). Encouragingly, the graduation rate of 90.4% in 2024-25 exceeded the state's 87.7%, and female students showed substantial improvement in the most recent year.

Columbia High currently holds a 2-star rating, ranking in the 40th percentile of North Carolina high schools for 2025-26. That is an improvement over the prior year but below the school's own 3-star, 53rd-percentile showing in 2023-24. Because enrollment is small, single-year swings can be misleading — Math I proficiency ranged from 52.3% to 12.5% to 26.3% over three years. Looking at longer trends, reducing chronic absenteeism would likely be the single highest-leverage step for raising both student achievement and the school's statewide standing.