Best Public Schools in Zip Code 27298

ZIP code 27298 (Liberty, NC) contains just three public schools — Northeastern Randolph Middle School (grades 6–8), Liberty Elementary School (grades PK–5), and Nathanael Greene Elementary (grades K–5) — with no high school available locally, meaning families with older students must look outside the area. These are small, rural schools with near-universal economic disadvantage (over 98% free/reduced-price lunch eligibility), and they report to two different districts: Randolph County School System serves Northeastern Randolph Middle and Liberty Elementary, while Guilford County Schools operates Nathanael Greene Elementary.

Among the three, Nathanael Greene Elementary is the clear standout, ranking in the 49th statewide percentile with the strongest EOG proficiency (roughly 58% overall). Its 3rd grade math (86.4%) and reading (68.2%) results are well above both district and state averages. It also has the smallest class sizes (13.8 students per teacher) and the highest per-student spending ($10,736). At the other end, Liberty Elementary School is the most challenged school, ranking only in the 20th percentile with a 1-star rating; reading proficiency is particularly low, with just 25.8% of 3rd graders proficient versus 55.6% statewide. Northeastern Randolph Middle School sits in the middle — 37th percentile — with solid math and science scores (including 58.8% 7th grade math) but reading scores that trail the state significantly.

Reading is the biggest weakness across the entire ZIP code. All three schools perform better in math than reading, and the gap is especially large at Liberty Elementary (~19.5 percentage points). Notably, high poverty does not automatically mean low performance: Nathanael Greene achieves much stronger outcomes than Liberty despite similarly high poverty rates, and it benefits from higher spending and lower student-teacher ratios as a Guilford County school. Chronic absenteeism is highest at Nathanael Greene (27.1%) and lowest at Liberty (20.8%), yet Liberty still has the lowest test scores. Finally, Northeastern Randolph Middle's statewide rank has declined steadily from the 56th to 37th percentile over three years, even though its test scores have remained fairly stable — a trend worth monitoring.