Best High Schools in Zip Code 27704

There are four public high schools in zip code 27704 in Durham, North Carolina: Northern High (1,281 students, grades 9–12), The School for Creative Studies (350 students, grades 6–12), City of Medicine Academy (329 students, grades 9–12), and Lakeview School (52 students, grades 6–12). Every school serves a very high-poverty population, with at least 94% of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. All four belong to Durham Public Schools, a district rated 2 out of 5 stars and ranked 155th of 246 districts in North Carolina — yet outcomes across these schools vary enormously.

The clear standout is City of Medicine Academy, a 5-star school ranked 39th of 662 high schools statewide (94th percentile), with near-universal proficiency on every End-of-Course test — 97.8% in Biology, 94.0% in English II, 98.8% in Math III — despite 98.5% poverty. Northern High, the largest school, sits at the opposite end: ranked in the bottom 11%, with a 75.9% graduation rate and over half of its students chronically absent. Lakeview School, ranked last in the state, is a small specialized school (52 students, 2.8:1 student-teacher ratio, $45,258 per-pupil spending) serving students with profound needs, so its single-digit proficiency rates should be read with that context in mind. The School for Creative Studies lands in the middle, ranked 389th, and posts the highest reported graduation rate in the area at 94.1%.

The biggest takeaway for parents is that high poverty does not doom a school, but chronic absenteeism is a sharp dividing line. City of Medicine Academy has only 16.7% chronic absenteeism, versus 53.4% at Northern High and 55.9% at Lakeview School. Durham Public Schools as a whole is rated 2 stars, but that masks enormous inequality — this zip code alone contains a top-6% school, a mid-range school, a bottom-11% school, and the state's lowest-ranked school. Parents should also be aware of data gaps: City of Medicine Academy has no reported graduation rate, and spending figures date from 2018–2019, so today's budgets may look different.