Cleveland High

Cleveland High is a 9-12 campus of big scale in Clayton, North Carolina, overseen by Johnston County Public Schools, caters to 1,889 students in grades 9 through 12. That puts it 148% above the typical public school in North Carolina, which averages around 761 students.

Within Johnston County Public Schools, which oversees 48 schools and 37,320 students, Cleveland High is one campus in the system.

On the student-mix side, Cleveland High lists that the most-represented group is White (49%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. Beyond that, the school logs 25% Hispanic, 20% Black, 5% multiracial. By comparison, Johnston County as a whole is about 64% White, so the school skews visibly less White than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, On paper, Cleveland High has 80 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 23.5:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 19.6:1 average. An estimated 99% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy.

After controlling for student poverty, Cleveland High performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.7%, the actual is 52.0%, a residual of +3.3 points.

Across the wider county, Johnston County reports that the typical household earns roughly $83,384 per year, roughly 29% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 8%. In all, Johnston County runs 52 public schools (combined enrollment of about 41,004 students), of which Cleveland High is one.

Nearest neighbor: Polenta Elementary, around 1.2 miles off. 6 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Cleveland High comes 8th of 9 in the immediate cluster, below the nearby-schools average of 60.6%.

Geographically, the school is in a low-density area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count rose 12%: 1,689 students in 2018 compared to 1,889 in 2025. The White share of enrollment fell from 64% to 49% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio loosened from 18.8:1 in 2018 to 23.5:1 today.

On this page, the feed for Cleveland High typically covers classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.