Best Public Schools in Zip Code 28411

ZIP code 28411 contains four schools serving approximately 2,860 students: three traditional elementary schools within New Hanover County Schools — Porters Neck Elementary, Ogden Elementary, and Murrayville Elementary — plus one K-12 alternative school, American Leadership Academy-Coastal, which operates as its own charter LEA and is the only school in the ZIP offering secondary grades.

For elementary families, this area is unusually strong academically. Ogden Elementary is the clear standout, ranking 47th of 1,492 North Carolina elementary schools (97th percentile, 5 stars) with current EOG proficiency averaging roughly 85.8%, including 92.1% in 4th grade math; its chronic absenteeism rate is just 8.1%. Porters Neck Elementary is the steady performer, earning 4 stars in each of the past three ranked years and ranking in the 84th percentile; it has the lowest chronic absenteeism in the ZIP (6.4%) and exceeds state and district averages in every reported subject. The biggest surprise is Murrayville Elementary: despite a 99.5% free/reduced-price lunch rate, it outperforms both state and district averages in all reported EOG tests and ranks in the 81st percentile (4 stars), with a chronic absenteeism rate of 13.1% that remains well below the state average.

The secondary picture is the ZIP code's biggest limitation. There is no standalone traditional middle or high school in 28411, so families typically need to look outside the ZIP or enroll at American Leadership Academy-Coastal, which serves grades K-12 as the area's largest school (1,002 students). ALA-Coastal is academically mixed—beating state averages in 7th grade reading and math and English II, but lagging in biology and 8th grade science—with a graduation rate of 82.8% and chronic absenteeism of 24.0%, about four times higher than Porters Neck's. Overall, the three traditional elementary schools are among the stronger options in the region, while the choice for older students remains more complicated.