R N Harris Elementary

R N Harris Elementary operates as an intimate elementary school in Durham, North Carolina, operated by Durham Public Schools. Current enrollment sits at 313 students spanning grades pre-K through 5. That puts it 33% smaller than the typical public school in North Carolina, which averages around 467 students.

Within Durham Public Schools, which oversees 55 schools and 31,797 students, R N Harris Elementary is one campus in the system.

Looking at the student body, R N Harris Elementary reports that the most-represented group is Black (47%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups; the rest comes out to 43% Hispanic, 5% multiracial, 4% White. By comparison, Durham County as a whole is about 32% Black, so the school skews meaningfully more Black than its surroundings.

On the resource side, The school lists 22 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 14.6:1. That tracks the state average closely. An estimated 99% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

After controlling for student poverty, R N Harris Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.6%, the actual is 43.3%, a residual of -5.3 points.

In the broader community, Durham County reports that the typical household earns roughly $82,316 per year, about 55% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 8%. In all, Durham County runs 74 public schools (combined enrollment of about 46,109 students), of which R N Harris Elementary is one.

The closest other public school is Middle College HS @ DTCC, roughly 0.3 miles away. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, R N Harris Elementary comes 4th of 6 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 53.1%.

The school occupies a city-core site.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count edged down 11%: 350 students in 2018 compared to 313 in 2025. The Hispanic share of enrollment fell from 51% to 43% over that span. Class-load math has loosened: from 11.4:1 in 2018 to 14.6:1 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, the feed for R N Harris Elementary typically covers open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.