Charles H Darden Middle

Located at 1665 Lipscomb Road, in Wilson, North Carolina, Charles H Darden Middle is a cozy middle school that enrolls 378 students (grades 6 through 8), operated by Wilson County Schools. Enrollment runs roughly 38% smaller than the state mean of about 605.

Wilson County Schools comprises 25 schools with combined enrollment of 10,451 students; Charles H Darden Middle is among them.

Demographically, Charles H Darden Middle logs that the largest single group is Black, at 64% of enrollment. The remainder consists of 31% Hispanic, 3% White, 2% multiracial. That is visibly more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 39%.

Looking at school resources, Charles H Darden Middle lists 28 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 13.7:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 15.9:1, putting Charles H Darden Middle tighter than the state norm the norm. Roughly 99% of students at Charles H Darden Middle qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Charles H Darden Middle performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.5%, the actual is 34.6%, a residual of -14.0 points.

In the area at large, community-level numbers for Wilson County indicate the typical household earns roughly $56,423 per year, roughly 22% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 14%. In all, Wilson County runs 29 public schools (combined enrollment of about 12,482 students), of which Charles H Darden Middle is one.

Nearest neighbor: B O Barnes Elementary, around 0.4 miles off. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Charles H Darden Middle at 4th of 4; the average score across the group is 55.2%.

The school occupies a town-center site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count climbed 26%: 301 students in 2018 compared to 378 in 2025. Hispanic enrollment moved from 21% to 31% across the same window. Class-load math has widened: from 11.9:1 in 2018 to 13.7:1 in 2025.

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