Summary:
Zip code 28508, covering the rural Albertson area of North Carolina, contains exactly one public school: B F Grady Elementary, which serves 865 students in grades PK-8 and is part of Duplin County Schools. With no other schools in the zip code, the most useful comparisons are to the district and state rather than to a neighboring school. The poverty level here is extreme — 99.65% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch — so the school's results should be viewed in that context.
Despite the high poverty rate, B F Grady has real strengths. Chronic absenteeism is only 14.2%, well below the district's 18.9% and the state's 24.2%, showing that students come to school consistently. The school generally outperforms its district in math: average math proficiency in grades 3-8 was 45.7% in 2025-26 versus 42.6% in the district, though below the state's 59.9%. The standout is 5th grade science, where 65.1% of students were proficient — nearly matching the state's 67.7% and far exceeding the district's 40.7%. The school's statewide rank has also climbed from the 8th percentile in 2023-24 to the 20th percentile in 2025-26, confirming its upward trajectory.
The biggest weakness is reading. Average reading proficiency across grades 3-8 was just 36.0% in 2025-26, below the district's 38.9% and far below the state's 56.0%, with no grade reaching even 45% proficiency. Math also declines sharply as students get older, falling from 61.2% in 3rd grade to 30.4% in 8th grade. Science follows a similar split: strong in 5th grade but only 41.8% in 8th grade versus the state's 68.6%. Since B F Grady Elementary is the only PK-8 school in this zip code, most children spend their entire elementary and middle-school years at this one school before leaving the area for high school. The improving rank, strong attendance, and early-grade successes are encouraging, but the reading deficits and middle-school declines remain the most urgent concerns for parents and the district to address.
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