Original Research by School Decision on Rise Southeast Raleigh Charter School
RISE Southeast Raleigh Charter School is a public charter district serving kindergarten through eighth grade in Raleigh, North Carolina. It operates a single school campus under the community eligibility provision, which means all students receive free meals regardless of family income. The school recently underwent a rebranding, transitioning from its former identity as PAVE Southeast Raleigh Charter School to RISE Southeast Raleigh Charter, a leadership and identity shift that parents may encounter in older and newer online records.
The enrollment is small to moderate for its grade band, distributed relatively evenly across all nine grades from kindergarten through eighth. The student population is predominantly Black, with a secondary and meaningful Hispanic enrollment; Asian, multiracial, and white students make up a small share. This enrollment composition reflects the school's location in southeast Raleigh and its mission-driven approach.
State assessment data for this school was not available, making it impossible to characterize academic proficiency or trends in reading and math. Without testing results, parents cannot directly compare this school's student outcomes against state standards or neighboring districts on measures of academic achievement. This gap is a significant one for a parent trying to evaluate academic performance.
The school operates under the federal community eligibility provision, meaning all families qualify for free meals based on the school's census tract and composition rather than through individual paperwork. Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, the school replaced pre-packaged meals with on-site scratch cooking, prepared by a professional chef through a partnership with the nonprofit Food Paradigm. This shift from institutional meal service to kitchen-prepared food is a concrete change in daily student experience that some families prioritize when choosing a school.
Among Wake County's districts, chronic absenteeism at RISE sits in the bottom quartile, meaning the school is working with higher rates of regular student absence than most of its county neighbors. This pattern warrants conversation with the school about root causes and support strategies. Per-pupil spending at RISE is in the upper range for the county, reflecting either higher staffing intensity, specialized programming, or other resource investments. What that spending supports is not evident from the available data.
The school is relatively young in its current iteration and identity. Parents considering enrollment may want to ask the school directly about academic results, curriculum design, special education services, English learner support, and the school's strategic priorities moving forward. The combination of missing proficiency data and a recent rebranding makes independent research and direct conversation with leadership particularly important for families evaluating whether RISE is the right fit.
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