Schools in Zip Code 27265

ZIP code 27265 in High Point, North Carolina contains 10 schools — 4 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, 3 high schools, and 1 alternative K-12 school — with all but one belonging to Guilford County Schools. Free/reduced lunch eligibility tops 97% at every school in the district, so poverty is essentially constant across the ZIP. Yet performance varies dramatically, with state rankings ranging from the 92nd percentile down to the 10th percentile and chronic absenteeism ranging from 11.5% to 38.7%.

Southwest Elementary is the clear standout — a 5-star school ranking 115th in North Carolina, above the state average on all seven EOG tests with 81% average proficiency. Florence Elementary and Shadybrook Elementary also post solid results, while Oak View Elementary is the lowest-performing elementary school, though it jumped from the 6th to the 22nd percentile in one year. Among middle schools, Southwest Guilford Middle (37th percentile) beats Welborn Middle (10th percentile) by 17 points, but both trail state averages on every EOG test. At the high school level, Kearns Academy stands out with 58.3% Math I proficiency versus the state's 42.1%, while Southwest Guilford High and T Wingate Andrews High lag badly in algebra, as does Phoenix Academy, the ZIP's alternative K-12 school.

Chronic absenteeism explains some but not all of these gaps: Welborn Middle has the lowest absenteeism rate in the ZIP (11.5%) yet still posts weak test scores, while Southwest Elementary combines 99.6% poverty with low absenteeism and top-tier results. High graduation rates also coexist with low proficiency — T Wingate Andrews High graduates 94.8% of its students despite ranking in the 18th percentile — so parents should not assume a high graduation rate means strong math or reading outcomes. The larger pattern is that elementary schools outperform secondary schools here, and algebra readiness is the biggest red flag in the area. The takeaway is that school choice matters enormously within this ZIP: Southwest Elementary and Kearns Academy prove that high-poverty schools can excel, while families considering middle or high school should look closely at subject-level results rather than relying on graduation rates alone.