Summary:
ZIP code 27713 in Durham, North Carolina, contains only one public middle school—Lowe's Grove Middle—which serves grades 6 through 8 and enrolls 564 students in the Durham Public Schools district. Because there is no other public middle school in this ZIP code, the most useful benchmarks for comparison are the district and state averages. Lowe's Grove Middle is a very high-poverty school, with 99.47% of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, and it faces a chronic absenteeism rate of 43.7%—well above both the Durham Public Schools rate of 36.1% and the state rate of 24.2%.
Academically, Lowe's Grove Middle remains below district and state averages in most tested areas. In 2025–2026, average math proficiency was 36.1%, compared with 51.1% for the district and 56.1% for the state. Average reading proficiency was 35.0%, versus 50.8% for the district and 55.7% for the state. Eighth-grade science proficiency was 41.2%, while the district posted 62.1% and the state 68.6%. The gap widens significantly as students progress: in 6th grade math, the school's 48.7% proficiency is close to the district's 49.8%, but by 8th grade the school's 26.2% trails the district's 50.7% by roughly 24 points.
On a more positive note, Lowe's Grove Middle improved in every reported grade and subject from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026. The largest gain came in 8th grade science, where proficiency more than doubled from 20.0% to 41.2%. The school's state ranking also improved from 743rd out of 793 schools in 2023–2024 to 683rd out of 778 in 2025–2026. Still, the school remains low-performing overall, and the combination of universal poverty, very high chronic absenteeism, and widening academic gaps from 6th to 8th grade are significant ongoing concerns for families to consider.
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