Summary:
Zip code 28163 contains exactly one public school: Stanfield Elementary, a K–5 elementary school in Stanfield, NC, serving 483 students as part of Stanly County Schools. Since there are no middle or high schools within this zip code, families here must travel outside the area for secondary education.
Stanfield Elementary serves an extremely high-poverty population, with 99.38% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch. Despite this, chronic absenteeism is just 16.4%, noticeably better than the district's 19.7% and the state's 24.2%, and the student-teacher ratio is a favorable 13.6 to 1. The school shows a clear upward trajectory, improving its state ranking for three consecutive years from the 50th percentile in 2023–2024, to the 57th percentile in 2024–2025, and now to the 63rd percentile in North Carolina for 2025–2026. Math is a significant strength: in the most recent year, 3rd grade math proficiency reached 85.5%, beating the district by nearly 16 points and the state by over 19 points, while overall math and reading averages sit slightly above district and state levels. Science proficiency in 5th grade is also strong at 73.2%, outpacing the district's 68.2% and the state's 67.7%. Reading scores are closer to average and more inconsistent across grades.
The data indicate that year-to-year fluctuations are driven more by individual grade cohorts than stable school-wide trends. For example, 3rd grade math jumped from 63.2% to 85.5% in one year, while 4th grade math fell from 75% to 57.4% as different groups of students moved through. Likewise, 5th grade science improved dramatically from 54.4% to 73.2%. The combination of strong attendance, a low student-teacher ratio, and rising academic performance makes Stanfield Elementary an improving school that is outperforming expectations given its very high poverty level.
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