Best Middle Schools in Zip Code 28753

Zip code 28753 contains one middle school, Madison Middle School in Marshall, NC, serving grades 6 through 8 with 468 students, so there are no neighboring middle schools for a direct local comparison; the most useful benchmarks instead come from the North Carolina state averages and its district, Madison County Schools, which is rated 4 stars and ranks in the top third of districts statewide (72nd percentile). Parents should know that Madison Middle is a high-poverty school where 99.36% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, yet its student-teacher ratio of 11.8 to 1 indicates relatively small class sizes.

Academically, Madison Middle performs around the state average overall, with a 57.5% proficiency rate in the 2025–2026 school year across seven tested subject-grade combinations compared to the state's 57.7%. The biggest strength lies in the early middle grades: 6th and 7th grade math and reading scores have topped state proficiency averages in both reported school years, with 6th grade math notably strong at 71.8% proficiency versus the state's 59.2%. The 8th grade year, however, is a significant weak point — 8th grade math proficiency fell to just 39.9% versus the state's 53.0%, science also trailed the state by 6 points, and the gap between the school's 6th grade and 8th grade math scores reached a striking 31.9 percentage points within the same school year.

Chronic absenteeism is perhaps the most alarming issue, affecting 38.7% of Madison Middle students in 2024–2025 — roughly 2 in every 5 students — which is nearly 12 percentage points above the district rate and about 14.5 points above the state rate. The school's statewide ranking has also slipped steadily over three years, falling from 194th of 793 middle schools in 2023–2024 (76th percentile, 4 stars) to 369th of 778 in 2025–2026 (53rd percentile, 3 stars), meaning the school lost ground even while its absolute test scores modestly improved. Overall, Madison Middle shows genuine bright spots in its early-grade instruction, but the combination of high poverty, severe absenteeism, and an 8th grade performance decline are the key issues parents should watch.