Best Public Schools in Zip Code 28340

ZIP code 28340 in Fairmont, NC, is served by four public schools—two elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school—that together educate about 1,667 students in a deeply impoverished rural area where nearly every child qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch. All four schools belong to the Public Schools of Robeson County, a district that ranks in the bottom quarter of North Carolina districts, yet the schools themselves tell very different stories of success and struggle.

The clear standouts are Fairmont High and Fairgrove Elementary School. Fairmont High has climbed from the 6th to the 34th percentile over the past two years and is the only school in the area with a 2-star rating. Its math scores now exceed state averages, with Math III proficiency at 76.8% and Math I at 53.8%. Fairgrove has also jumped from the 9th to the 27th percentile, with 5th-grade science and math proficiency now matching or beating the state average. In contrast, Rosenwald Elementary and Fairmont Middle are both in the bottom 3% of their school types statewide. Fairmont Middle is especially concerning: 5th-grade math proficiency is just 12.1% compared to Fairgrove's 62.8% for the same grade, and only 11.5% of 6th graders are proficient in math.

Chronic absenteeism is a major barrier everywhere, ranging from 33.4% at Rosenwald to 52.6% at Fairmont Middle—far above the state's 24.2% average. Still, the strong progress at Fairmont High and Fairgrove shows that improvement is possible even under extreme poverty. While Fairmont Middle has the lowest student-teacher ratio, it also has the worst outcomes, suggesting that high absenteeism and school-level factors matter more than staffing alone. For parents, the key takeaway is that school choice within this ZIP code matters enormously, and the middle school years appear to be the most critical point of struggle.