Northwest Middle

Located at 5501 Murray Road, in Winston Salem, North Carolina, Northwest Middle is a moderately sized middle-grades school that caters to 702 students (grades 6 through 8), overseen by Winston Salem / Forsyth County Schools.

Winston Salem / Forsyth County Schools runs 79 schools in total, collectively educating 51,745 students. Northwest Middle is one of those campuses.

In terms of who attends, Northwest Middle lists that the largest single group is Hispanic at 43%, but no single group is in the majority; the rest comes out to 40% Black, 10% White, 5% multiracial. The wider county runs roughly 15% Hispanic, putting the school's mix noticeably more Hispanic than the area baseline.

In terms of school funding signals, Northwest Middle logs 48 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 14.5:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 15.9:1 average. Around 100% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. By comparison, Forsyth County runs at roughly 88%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, On a poverty-adjusted basis, Northwest Middle sits in the bottom 10% statewide. Predicted proficiency from the FRL regression is roughly 48.4%; actual is 27.6%, a gap of -20.9 points.

Zooming out to the county, ACS estimates for Forsyth County put median household earnings sit near $67,165, about 39% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 10%. Across Forsyth County's 88 public schools (combined enrollment of about 55,902 students), Northwest Middle is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Gibson Elementary, around 0.4 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Northwest Middle. Among the 6 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Northwest Middle ranks 4th on composite proficiency, beneath the local average of 38.4%.

The school occupies an urban site.

Five-year trend. Northwest Middle's enrollment has fell 26% since 2018, when it stood at 945 (now 702). The White share of enrollment edged down from 19% to 10% over that span.

On this page, recent activity here tends to focus on enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. The community welcomes input from current and former families.