Best Public Schools in Zip Code 27514

Schools in zip code 27514 serve Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with four public schools offering a complete Pre-K through high school pathway: East Chapel Hill High, Phillips Middle, New Hope Elementary, and Estes Hills Elementary. Three of the four belong to Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, with New Hope Elementary in Orange County Schools. Although the schools share one ZIP code, they reflect very different educational settings: a top-tier elementary, a strong middle school, a high school with notable challenges, and a high-poverty elementary that is steadily improving.

The standout school is Estes Hills Elementary, ranked in the 91st percentile statewide with a 5-star rating. It posts the ZIP code’s highest test proficiency, lowest chronic absenteeism at 8.0%, lowest student-teacher ratio at 10.9, and highest per-pupil spending. Phillips Middle is a dependable 4-star school in the 87th percentile, with strong 8th-grade science and math scores and absenteeism well below district and state averages. East Chapel Hill High earns 4 stars with an excellent 93.1% graduation rate and strong results in English II and Biology, but it has the area’s most troubling academic trend: only 29.9% of Math I students are proficient, down 12 points from the prior year, and its chronic absenteeism rate is 33.2%. New Hope Elementary is ranked much lower at the 49th percentile, but almost its entire student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, making its steady upward movement especially encouraging.

The biggest concern in 27514 is East Chapel Hill High, where one in three students is chronically absent and freshman math proficiency is far below both district and state levels. The clearest equity gap appears between Estes Hills and New Hope: Estes Hills reaches roughly 80% reading proficiency in 4th grade while New Hope sits near 47%, and resource differences follow the same pattern. Still, New Hope’s attendance is better than its district average, and its state percentile has climbed from 42nd to 49th over three years. For parents, this ZIP code offers strong elementary and middle options, but the high school’s attendance and Math I performance and the wide gap between its two elementary schools are worth watching closely.