Schools in Zip Code 27874

ZIP code 27874 contains just one school: Scotland Neck Elementary Leadership Academy, an elementary school serving grades PK-5 with 140 students in the Halifax County Schools district. Nearly all students (97.86%) qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, so the school serves an extremely high-poverty population. The student-teacher ratio is 14:1, and per-pupil spending was $13,990 in the most recent available school year. Chronic absenteeism is a major concern, with 43.1% of students chronically absent in 2024-2025—roughly double the state rate of 24.2% and slightly above the district rate of 42.1%.

Academically, Scotland Neck Elementary Leadership Academy currently earns 1 star from SchoolDigger and ranks in the 11th percentile statewide (1,323 out of 1,492 schools) for 2025-2026, an improvement from 0 stars two years ago. Across all tested subjects, average proficiency was 39.4% in 2025-2026, compared to 40.9% for the district and 61.0% for the state, leaving a gap of roughly 21 points. There are bright spots worth noting: third-grade reading surged from 26.3% to 52.4% proficiency in one year, nearly closing the gap with the state average, and fifth-grade reading and math both improved by more than 11 points. However, fourth-grade math proficiency sits at just 21.4%, a 40-point gap from the state average, and fourth-grade reading is also very low at 28.6%.

Because this is a small school with roughly 140 students spread across pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, individual grade cohorts are quite small and proficiency rates can swing widely from year to year based on just a handful of students. For instance, third-grade math fell from 52.6% to 38.1% in the same year that third-grade reading soared. The school outperformed its district overall in 2024-2025 but slipped slightly below the district average in 2025-2026 as district scores improved. While the school remains about 20 points behind the state in overall proficiency, standout results like the third-grade reading improvement show real potential. The biggest opportunity for growth is clearly fourth-grade performance, and addressing chronic absenteeism will be critical to making lasting progress.