Surf City Elementary

As a heavily attended elementary campus in Hampstead, North Carolina, Surf City Elementary instructs 857 students from grades pre-K through 5, part of Pender County Schools. By comparison, North Carolina's public schools average about 467 students each, so Surf City Elementary sits 84% bigger than that benchmark.

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

Demographically, Surf City Elementary records that 80% of the student body identifies as White; the rest consists of 9% Hispanic, 7% multiracial, 3% Black.

In terms of school funding signals, The school reports having 51 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 16.8:1. The state averages around 14.9:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. Roughly 100% of students at Surf City Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Pender County runs at roughly 70%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Surf City Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.4%, the actual is 63.7%, a residual of +15.3 points.

Zooming out to the county, the surrounding county (Pender County) logs that median household income runs about $80,396, roughly 31% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 7% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Surf City Elementary is one of 19 public schools in Pender County (combined enrollment of about 11,073 students).

Surf City Middle is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.0 miles from this campus. Within ten miles, there are 8 other public schools, a sparser pattern than typical urban areas. On composite proficiency, Surf City Elementary comes 8th of 9 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 70.3%.

The school occupies an outlying site.

On the community side, posts here usually surface around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Parents, students, alumni, and staff are welcome to weigh in.