Best High Schools in Zip Code 28150

Zip code 28150 contains one high school, Turning Point Academy, a small grades 6–12 school in Shelby, NC, serving just 142 students in the Cleveland County Schools district.

The data for Turning Point Academy paints a picture of a school in crisis. In the latest ranking, it placed 662nd out of 662 North Carolina high schools — dead last with a 0-star rating. Its graduation rate is just 40.5%, compared with 85.5% for its own district and 88.8% statewide. Academic proficiency is dramatically lower across every subject: Math III proficiency sits at 5.4% versus 68.9% across the state, while English II proficiency is only 10.3% against a 64.6% state average. Even in middle school, 8th-grade science proficiency is 15.4% versus 68.6% statewide, and 7th-grade math proficiency is 10.0% versus 56.2%. Average tested proficiency is roughly 12%, compared with about 61% for both district and state. Chronic absenteeism affects 39.8% of students, nearly 16 percentage points above the state level, and 97.89% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, indicating extreme poverty concentration. The school’s recent rank history is consistently poor, hovering in the bottom 3–8 percentiles before falling to last place.

For parents, the bottom line is that Turning Point Academy faces severe, systemic challenges despite being part of a Cleveland County Schools district that ranks in the 67th percentile statewide. The struggles appear across all subjects and grade levels, suggesting the issues are not isolated to one test or grade. High chronic absenteeism, combined with the fact that nearly every student comes from a low-income household, are major obstacles directly tied to the school’s low proficiency and graduation rates. While the school does have a relatively low student-teacher ratio of 11.8, and per-pupil spending was reported at $21,288, the dated spending data is not enough to offset the glaring academic outcomes. With only 142 students, year-to-year changes can be volatile and may reflect just a handful of students, but the consistent bottom-of-state rankings and 40.5% graduation rate remain the most urgent takeaways for any family considering this school.