Gardners Elementary

Set in Elm City, North Carolina, Gardners Elementary is an intimate K-5 school, one of the schools within Wilson County Schools. It instructs 280 students across grades K through 5. That puts it 40% below the typical public school in North Carolina, which averages around 467 students.

Gardners Elementary is one of 25 schools operated by Wilson County Schools, a district that teaches 10,451 students overall.

On demographics, Gardners Elementary shows that the largest single group is Hispanic at 36%, but no single group is in the majority. The remainder reads as 35% White, 22% Black, 6% multiracial. That is considerably more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 12%.

On the income-and-resources front, Gardners Elementary reports 18 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 15.5:1. The state averages about 14.9:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. An estimated 98% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Gardners Elementary sits in the top 10% of North Carolina schools after the BeatsExpectations adjustment. Predicted proficiency for the school's FRL share is roughly 48.9%; actual is 71.0%, +22.1 points clear of the demographic baseline.

Around the school, the surrounding county (Wilson County) records that median household income runs about $56,423, 22% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 14%. In all, Wilson County runs 29 public schools (combined enrollment of about 12,482 students), of which Gardners Elementary is one.

Nearest neighbor: Charles H Darden Middle, around 6.1 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a ten-mile radius, suggesting a relatively low-density school footprint. Among the 5 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Gardners Elementary ranks 2nd on composite proficiency, above the local average of 57.8%.

The school occupies a low-density site.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Gardners Elementary has increased 10%, going from 254 students in 2018 to 280 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, 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.