Schools in Zip Code 28328

Zip code 28328 is home to eight traditional public schools serving roughly 4,251 students in a high-poverty area of North Carolina, with five elementary-level schools, two middle schools, and one high school split between Clinton City Schools and Sampson County Schools. Free and reduced lunch eligibility runs between 97.2% and 99.6% at every campus. Inside Clinton City Schools are Clinton High, Sampson Middle, Sunset Avenue Elementary, Butler Avenue Elementary, and Langdon C. Kerr Elementary; Sampson County Schools operates Union Elementary, Union Intermediate, and Union Middle. The 'elementary' labels can mislead: Langdon C. Kerr Elementary serves PK–K, Butler Avenue Elementary serves grades 1–2, and Union Elementary serves PK–2, so these three schools have no EOG test data or state rankings.

Among the tested schools, Sampson Middle is the strongest and most stable, ranking at the 33rd statewide percentile with 2 stars, with 7th-grade math proficiency close to the state average. Sunset Avenue Elementary posts the lowest chronic absenteeism in the zip (16.1%) but has slid from the 47th to the 28th percentile since 2023–24. The biggest concern is Union Middle: ranked at the 9th percentile with 0 stars, it has the highest chronic absenteeism (35.8%) and just 7.0% of its 8th graders are proficient in math, compared with 53.0% statewide. Clinton High, the only high school, has an 85.5% graduation rate and low math performance, with 23.2% proficient in Math I. Both Union Intermediate and Union Middle rank below the typical Sampson County school.

Chronic absenteeism exceeds a quarter of students at Union Elementary, Langdon C. Kerr Elementary, Clinton High, and Sampson Middle. Math is the most alarming subject here, with multiple schools falling 20–46 percentage points behind state proficiency averages, and large year-to-year swings—such as Union Middle's 8th-grade math falling from 25.6% to 7.0%—signal unstable cohorts. The high-poverty, low-ranking pattern across 28328 means parents should weigh both test scores and attendance carefully, especially in the early-grade schools that currently have no testing data.