South Smithfield Elementary

South Smithfield Elementary is an elementary school of middle-of-the-pack scale in Smithfield, North Carolina, overseen by Johnston County Public Schools, serveing 450 students in grades pre-K through 5.

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

For racial and ethnic makeup, South Smithfield Elementary reports that the most-represented group is Hispanic (42%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups; the rest comes out to 34% Black, 18% White, 5% multiracial. That is meaningfully more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 17%.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 36 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 12.4:1 students per teacher. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 14.9:1, putting South Smithfield Elementary tighter than the state norm the norm. Roughly 99% of students at South Smithfield Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, South Smithfield Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.5%, the actual is 42.1%, a residual of -6.4 points.

Around the school, the surrounding county (Johnston County) reports that median household income runs about $83,384, roughly 29% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 8% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Johnston County runs 52 public schools (combined enrollment of about 41,004 students), of which South Smithfield Elementary is one.

The closest other public school is Choice Plus Academy, roughly 0.6 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, South Smithfield Elementary comes 2nd of 5 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 48.8%.

The campus sits in a town-based setting.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count decreased 19%: 556 students in 2018 compared to 450 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share contracted from 23% to 18%.

Within the allk12 community for this school, members of the South Smithfield Elementary community share and discuss school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. Parents, students, alumni, and staff are welcome to weigh in.