Summary:
Zip code 28516 contains one public high school, East Carteret High, which serves grades 9 through 12 in Beaufort, NC, with an enrollment of 521 students. The school belongs to Carteret County Public Schools, a district ranked 31st among 246 districts statewide with a 4-star rating. East Carteret High itself ranks 145th out of 662 North Carolina high schools for 2025-2026, placing it in the 78th percentile. A very high proportion of students, 97.7 percent, qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, making this a high-poverty school that nonetheless performs well overall. The student-teacher ratio is 17.3, and per-student spending was reported at $11,795.
Mathematics clearly stands out as the school's greatest strength. For 2025-2026, East Carteret High posted 97.5 percent proficiency in Math III and 78.2 percent in Math I, far outpacing the district and state averages. Even the prior year's lower Math I score of 62.6 percent still beat the state by roughly 28 points, and Math III improved nearly nine points year over year. Chronic absenteeism is 19.4 percent, better than the state rate of 24.2 percent, though slightly above the district rate of 18.7 percent. The school's state ranking has held steady in the 76th to 78th percentile over the past three years, confirming consistent performance in the top quarter of North Carolina high schools.
English II is the main area of concern. Only 66.9 percent of students scored proficient in 2025-2026, which is 11.2 points below the district and just 2.3 points above the state. The graduation rate of 85.8 percent also trails both the district (87.2 percent) and state (88.8 percent). With no other high schools in this zip code for direct comparison, East Carteret High stands alone but clearly outperforms expectations given its poverty profile. The central challenges ahead are improving literacy outcomes and raising on-time graduation rates while sustaining exceptional mathematics achievement.
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