Summary:
ZIP code 28328 in Clinton, North Carolina contains two public middle schools—Sampson Middle with 703 students and Union Middle with 374 students—both serving grades 6-8 in a high-poverty area where more than 99% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The two schools belong to different districts: Sampson Middle is part of Clinton City Schools, while Union Middle belongs to Sampson County Schools.
Parents comparing the two schools will notice very different trajectories. Sampson Middle ranks 520th out of 778 North Carolina middle schools (33rd percentile, two stars) and has held that position steadily for three years. Union Middle, by contrast, ranks 707th (9th percentile, zero stars), after falling from 563rd over two years and dropping 88 spots in just the last year. Sampson outperforms Union in nearly every subject and grade. In math, Sampson’s proficiency was 51.9% in 6th grade, 52.5% in 7th grade, and 38.6% in 8th grade, while Union posted just 42.1%, 26.6%, and a very alarming 7.0%. Reading scores were closer, but Sampson still led consistently across all three grades, and Sampson also improved in most subjects from the previous year while Union mostly declined.
Union Middle’s 8th grade math result is the single biggest red flag: only 7% of its 8th graders were proficient, compared with a 53% state average and down sharply from 25.6% the year before. Chronic absenteeism at Union is 35.8%, over one in three students, while Sampson Middle’s rate is 26.0%. Sampson also enjoys a slightly better student-teacher ratio (16.4 versus 18.1). Although Union actually spends more per student ($9,309 versus $8,860), that higher spending has not produced stronger results. With nearly identical poverty levels, Sampson Middle has clearly emerged as the stronger, more stable school in this ZIP code, while Union Middle shows serious signs of academic distress that parents will want to watch closely.
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