Summary:
ZIP code 28773 is home to a single elementary school, Saluda Elementary School, serving grades PK–5 with 142 students in the Polk County Schools district. Saluda Elementary has consistently ranked among North Carolina’s top elementary schools, earning a 5-star rating and placing in the 94th percentile statewide in both 2023-2024 and 2024-2025. In the most recent ranking year, it dropped to a 4-star rating but still placed in the 88th percentile, making it one of the stronger schools in the state.
Academically, Saluda Elementary far exceeds district and state averages in most tested areas. In the 2024-2025 school year, 3rd-grade math proficiency was 95.6% (state: 64.1%), 5th-grade math was 94.4% (state: 59.3%), and 5th-grade reading was 94.4% (state: 52.9%). Even in the most recent 2025-2026 data, Saluda posted perfect scores in 3rd-grade reading and 4th-grade math. The only subject where the school fell below its district was 4th-grade reading in 2024-2025 (61.5% vs. 66.7%) and 5th-grade math in 2025-2026 (63.6% vs. 65.4%). Because grade-level cohorts are very small, a few students can cause large percentage swings, which explains the recent variability in 5th-grade results.
Perhaps most striking is that this high performance occurs at a school where nearly 98% of students are eligible for free/reduced-price lunch, a demographic often associated with lower outcomes. Despite this, chronic absenteeism at Saluda is 18.8%, lower than both the district average of 23.5% and the state average of 24.2%. The school also benefits from a low student-teacher ratio of 10.3:1 and per-pupil spending of $13,956. While Saluda is the only elementary school in 28773, it clearly stands out as a high-achieving, high-poverty school that outperforms its own district and most of North Carolina.
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