Pender High

Located at 5380 NC Hwy 53 W, in Burgaw, North Carolina, Pender High is a mid-sized senior high that enrolls 648 students (grades 9 through 12), one of the schools within Pender County Schools.

Across the 19 schools in Pender County Schools (11,073 students total), Pender High accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On demographics, Pender High logs that the largest single group is White at 41%, but no single group is in the majority; the rest is composed of 31% Black, 23% Hispanic, 4% multiracial. The wider county runs roughly 75% White, putting the school's mix meaningfully less White than the area baseline.

On the resource side, Pender High shows 29 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 22.2:1. The state averages around 19.6:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. Roughly 98% of students at Pender High qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Pender County runs at roughly 70%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully above the surrounding baseline.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Pender High falls in the UNDERPERFORMING tier of the BeatsExpectations residual. Given its student profile, a typical campus would land near 48.8%; this one comes in at 21.3%, -27.4 points off the demographic line.

Zooming out to the county, census data for Pender County shows median household income runs about $80,396, about 31% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and roughly 7% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Pender County runs 19 public schools (combined enrollment of about 11,073 students), of which Pender High is one.

The closest other public school is Malpass Corner Elementary, roughly 3.7 miles away. Counting just inside five miles, 3 other public schools cluster around Pender High. On composite proficiency, Pender High comes 9th of 9 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 45.7%.

The school occupies an outlying site.

Five-year trend. Pender High's enrollment has decreased 4% since 2018, when it stood at 678 (now 648). The Hispanic share of enrollment edged up from 14% to 23% over that span. Class-load math has widened: from 15.8:1 in 2018 to 22.2:1 in 2025.

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