Best High Schools in Zip Code 27577

Zip code 27577 in Johnston County, North Carolina, contains three public high schools serving grades 9–12 under Johnston County Public Schools. Two are small, specialized five-star academies—Johnston County Schools Career Technical and Johnston County Early College Academy—which are currently ranked 19th and 33rd out of 662 high schools in North Carolina. The third, Smithfield-Selma High, enrolls about 1,548 students—76% of local high schoolers—and ranks in the bottom quarter with a one-star rating.

Academically, the gap is enormous. On the 2025–2026 Biology End-of-Course exam, Smithfield-Selma High had 50.6% proficiency compared with 100% at the early college academy and 99.9% at the career technical academy; on English II, Smithfield-Selma had 45.7% versus 100% at both academies. All three schools have nearly identical poverty levels (about 99% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch), so income alone does not explain the divide. More telling, Smithfield-Selma’s chronic absenteeism rate is 41.5%—roughly twice the district and state averages—although its graduation rate of 89.3% is just above the state average of 88.8% but below the district’s 92.6%.

The two academies are not flash-in-the-pan successes. Johnston County Schools Career Technical has been ranked 19th, 17th, and 13th over the last three years, and Johnston County Early College Academy has placed 33rd, 34th, and 11th. They also spend less per student—roughly $7,000 versus $10,000 at Smithfield-Selma High—while posting far stronger results, which suggests that school design, student selection, and instructional model can outweigh simple funding. Still, since the academies have only 492 students combined, most high school students in zip code 27577 attend Smithfield-Selma High. For parents, the key takeaway is that obtaining a seat in one of the specialized academies can be transformative, but the majority of students in this zip code remain in a school that badly needs improvement.