Best Public Schools in Zip Code 27106

Zip code 27106 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina is home to 13 schools serving students from kindergarten through 12th grade, with nine elementary-level schools, three middle schools, and one high school. Nearly all of them belong to Winston Salem / Forsyth County Schools, except for Forsyth Academy, a K-8 charter school. Total enrollment across the zip code is about 8,759 students, and one defining feature is concentrated poverty: 12 of the 13 schools report free/reduced-price lunch eligibility above 96%, with Sherwood Forest Elementary the lone exception at about 19%. Two of the elementary-level schools, Childrens Center and The Special Children's School, are specialized programs for students with special needs, which explains their small enrollments, very high per-pupil spending, and absence from standard state academic rankings.

Sherwood Forest Elementary is the area's clear standout, ranking in the 97th percentile of North Carolina elementary schools with a 5-star rating and just 5.6% chronic absenteeism. Remarkably, poverty does not predict performance here: Meadowlark Elementary ranks in the 92nd percentile, and Jefferson Elementary ranks in the 87th percentile, even though more than 99% of their students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Strong middle school options also exist in high-poverty settings: Thomas Jefferson Middle sits in the 84th percentile, and Meadowlark Middle sits in the 79th percentile, with both outperforming district and state averages.

At the other end of the spectrum, Gibson Elementary, Old Town Elementary, and Northwest Middle rank in the bottom 10% of North Carolina schools, each with chronic absenteeism above 30%. Speas Elementary, at the 45th percentile, sits in the middle of this wide range. Mount Tabor High School is the sole high school in 27106; it graduates 87.8% of its students but ranks in the 23rd percentile of high schools statewide, with just 17.5% proficiency in Math I versus a 42.1% state average. Attendance is one of the clearest dividing lines between the strongest and weakest schools in 27106: the top performers all have chronic absenteeism below 21%, while the weakest schools all exceed 30%.