Best Public Schools in Zip Code 27217

In ZIP code 27217, there are six schools — three elementary schools (Eastlawn Elementary, R Homer Andrews Elementary, and Pleasant Grove Elementary), one middle school (Broadview Middle), one high school (Hugh M Cummings High), and one K-12 alternative school (Clover Garden) — serving about 3,579 students. Five of these schools belong to Alamance-Burlington Schools, while Clover Garden operates under its own separate district. A defining feature of this ZIP code is poverty concentration: all five traditional public schools serve student populations where between 98.76% and 99.43% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

The strongest overall academic results in the area come from Clover Garden, which beats state averages in several elementary math and reading tests, but it is uneven — its Biology proficiency is just 36.4% versus 58.5% statewide, and its graduation rate of 83.0% falls below the state rate of 88.8%. At the other end of the spectrum, Eastlawn Elementary ranks near the very bottom of North Carolina elementary schools (1,489 out of 1,492) and has proficiency rates below 20% in multiple subjects. Among the traditional public schools, R Homer Andrews Elementary is the clear bright spot: it has the lowest chronic absenteeism in the ZIP at 23.6%, the lowest student-teacher ratio at 12.3:1, and it posts the best test scores of the ABSS elementaries, though still generally below statewide averages. Hugh M Cummings High faces the most severe challenges, with more than half of its students chronically absent (51.7%) and a graduation rate of just 78.9%.

Chronic absenteeism is a systemic concern across the area, ranging from 22.7% at Clover Garden to the crisis level at Cummings High. Math proficiency tends to decline as students move from 3rd grade to higher grades, with many schools showing a drop of 15 to 30 percentage points by middle school. On a more encouraging note, several schools posted large year-over-year gains — most dramatically Cummings High's Math I proficiency jumping from 9.5% to 36.8%, and R Homer Andrews' 5th grade science rising from 35.8% to 57.1%. For parents seeking strong academic performance within ZIP 27217, Clover Garden stands out as the highest-achieving option, while R Homer Andrews is the strongest traditional public elementary. The most urgent need for intervention lies at Hugh M Cummings High and Eastlawn Elementary, where poverty, absenteeism, and low proficiency create the biggest barriers to student success.