Best High Schools in Zip Code 28405

In zip code 28405 (Wilmington, NC), there are three high schools—Emsley A Laney High, Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington, and Career Readiness Academy at Mosley PLC—serving grades 9–12 (though GLAW also includes grades 6–8) and operating under New Hanover County Schools, except for Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington, which functions as its own district. Among these, Emsley A Laney High is the strongest overall academic performer, with the best state ranking (378 out of 662), a 91.5% graduation rate, and English II proficiency above the state average. Career Readiness Academy at Mosley PLC is the most improved, while Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington posts impressive middle-school scores but sees those gains fade by high school.

Looking at key metrics, Emsley A Laney High leads all three schools in graduation rate and English II, with 70.7% proficiency compared to the state’s 64.6%. Career Readiness Academy at Mosley PLC, despite serving only 150 students, stands out for its dramatic year-over-year gains in every EOC subject, likely tied to its $21,178 per-pupil spending and a student-teacher ratio of just 10.2. Meanwhile, Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington shows impressive 8th-grade EOG results—65.6% in math and 67.2% in reading—but its high-school Math III proficiency is only 31.4% versus the state’s 68.9%. This Math III weakness is the biggest academic concern across the entire zip code; even Emsley A Laney High trails the state by 12.4 points, and the other two schools lag by much wider margins.

All three schools face substantial challenges: free/reduced-lunch rates range from 95.3% to 98.9%, and chronic absenteeism is between 37.7% and 42.0%, well above the state’s 24.2%. Even the best school, Emsley A Laney High, ranks below the middle of North Carolina high schools, and its standing has slipped from the 51st to the 43rd percentile in recent years. Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington is also trending downward, falling from the 50th to the 29th percentile. By contrast, Career Readiness Academy at Mosley PLC is climbing from the 21st to the 32nd percentile and now earns a 2-star ranking after a 1-star year—making it the most encouraging turnaround to watch.