Blue Ridge School

Located at 95 Bobcat Drive, in Cashiers, North Carolina, Blue Ridge School is a minimally staffed elementary campus that educates 144 students (grades pre-K through 6), one of the schools within Jackson County Public Schools. That puts it 69% smaller than the typical public school in North Carolina, which averages around 467 students.

Jackson County Public Schools runs 9 schools in total, collectively educating 3,444 students. Blue Ridge School is one of those campuses.

Demographically, Blue Ridge School logs that the largest single group is White at 54%, but no single group is in the majority. Other groups include 40% Hispanic, 2% multiracial, 2% Native American. By comparison, Jackson County as a whole is about 79% White, so the school skews noticeably less White than its surroundings.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 10 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 14.5:1 students per teacher. The state averages about 14.9:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. An estimated 90% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Blue Ridge School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 51.3%, the actual is 52.9%, a residual of +1.7 points.

In the broader community, community-level numbers for Jackson County indicate median household income runs about $55,815, about 31% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 10%. In all, Jackson County runs 11 public schools (combined enrollment of about 3,823 students), of which Blue Ridge School is one.

Nearest neighbor: Blue Ridge Early College, around 0.0 miles off. 2 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Blue Ridge School comes 3rd of 7 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 49.2%.

The campus sits in an outlying setting.

Five-year trend. Blue Ridge School's enrollment has decreased 26% since 2018, when it stood at 195 (now 144). The White share of enrollment declined from 61% to 54% over that span.

Inside the community feed, the feed for Blue Ridge School typically covers school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. The community welcomes input from current and former families.