Bonlee School

Bonlee School, a small elementary school in Bear Creek, North Carolina, part of Chatham County Schools, teaches 290 students, covering grades K through 8. By comparison, North Carolina's public schools average about 467 students each, so Bonlee School sits 38% leaner than that benchmark.

Within Chatham County Schools, which oversees 21 schools and 8,987 students, Bonlee School is one campus in the system.

On demographics, Bonlee School logs that 69% of the student body identifies as White. The remainder breaks down as 19% Hispanic, 9% Black, 3% multiracial. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

On the resource side, The school currently runs with 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 13.9:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 14.9:1 average. An estimated 99% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Chatham County runs at roughly 74%, so the school's eligibility rate is above the surrounding baseline.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Bonlee School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.6%, the actual is 53.2%, a residual of +4.6 points.

In the broader community, the surrounding county (Chatham County) shows that median household income runs about $94,317, roughly 49% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Chatham County's 25 public schools (combined enrollment of about 10,374 students), Bonlee School is one campus in the mix.

Chatham Central High is the nearest neighboring public school, about 2.7 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 3 other public schools cluster around Bonlee School. Among the 6 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Bonlee School ranks 3rd on composite proficiency, higher than the local average of 46.6%.

The school occupies a countryside site.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count fell 6%: 307 students in 2018 compared to 290 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.