Central Elementary

Central Elementary is an elementary campus of compact scale in Hillsborough, North Carolina, operated by Orange County Schools, educateing 261 students in grades pre-K through 5. Enrollment runs roughly 44% leaner than the state mean of about 467.

Orange County Schools runs 13 schools in total, collectively educating 6,982 students. Central Elementary is one of those campuses.

Looking at the student body, Central Elementary records that 40% of students identify as White, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. Other groups include 28% Black, 24% Hispanic, 7% multiracial. The wider county runs roughly 69% White, putting the school's mix visibly less White than the area baseline.

On the income-and-resources front, The school lists 23 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 11.2:1. 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. That share is higher than Orange County's rate of about 40%.

With demographic context factored in, Central Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.7%, the actual is 48.6%, a residual of -0.1 points.

In the broader community, the surrounding county (Orange County) logs that median household earnings sit near $90,089, 62% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 5%. Across Orange County's 38 public schools (combined enrollment of about 19,582 students), Central Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Hillsborough Elementary, around 0.2 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 7 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Central Elementary ranks 6th on composite proficiency, beneath the local average of 60.3%.

Central Elementary operates from a town-center location.

Looking at the recent track record. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Central Elementary has fell 5%, going from 276 students in 2018 to 261 in 2025. The Black share of enrollment declined from 33% to 28% over that span.

On this page, the feed for Central Elementary typically covers enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. The community welcomes input from current and former families.