The top reported proficiency rate is 56% in Science. The lowest is 42% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Cedar Grove Middle
Cedar Grove Middle is a regular public middle school serving grades six through eight in Supply, an unincorporated rural community in Brunswick County's Lockwoods Folly Township. The school sits on Grove Trail in a car-dependent landscape midway between Bolivia and Shallotte, where daily life revolves around driving on Ocean Highway and branch roads toward the beaches and nearby towns.
The school's student body is predominantly white, with smaller populations of Hispanic and Black students, and a substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Enrollment stands at around five hundred students split roughly evenly across the three middle grades. The population is economically stretched; nearly all students qualify for lunch assistance, a threshold that speaks to the economic profile of families Cedar Grove serves.
On state End-of-Grade testing, Cedar Grove's results reflect a school working within a challenging context. In math, proficiency sits below the midpoint. In English language arts, proficiency is lower still. Science proficiency is the school's strongest subject. None of these results place Cedar Grove apart in its county or state, and a parent may want to look into the school's instructional approaches and support systems directly with the school to understand what is driving these numbers and what interventions are in place. The data does not include information about schools' staffing, programming, or interventions; state testing data alone cannot say whether low performance reflects resource scarcity, turnover, leadership, curriculum implementation, or student need.
Supply and the broader Brunswick County region are growing rapidly. The county is among the fastest-growing in North Carolina, with new subdivisions regularly approved. Growth is placing pressure on schools. Elementary schools in the district are already near capacity, and all schools are projected to exceed capacity within a few years. In November 2026, voters will decide on a major school bond referendum that would fund two new schools and renovations. The outcome will directly shape whether Cedar Grove and other schools stay crowded or get relief, and whether the local property-tax burden rises substantially—a decisive factor for families considering a move to the area.
The district itself is pursuing structural changes. The Board of Education has adopted a five-year strategic plan to standardize curriculum across all tested subjects and to expand work-based learning—internships, apprenticeships, and dual-credit partnerships—so that a material share of students have access to career pathways by 2029. The district paused a grading-system overhaul in 2022 after parent and teacher pushback, preserving the conventional 0-100 scale that families rely on for honor roll and college applications. These moves suggest a district trying to balance instructional modernization with the family expectations and stability that matter to enrollment and trust.
The community itself is rural and residential. Civic life centers on parks and natural areas—Lockwood Folly District Park with playgrounds and ball fields, Bridgeview Park with a splash pad and summer concert series—and on nearby nature preserves including the Green Swamp Preserve and Brunswick Nature Park. There is no public transit; residents drive to work and to schools. Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center is the region's largest employer, followed by county schools and government and beach-tourism businesses. Median household income is modest, and housing ranges from manufactured-home communities and site-built subdivisions in the middle range to oceanfront properties. Supply is not a walkable, downtown-oriented place; it is a car-dependent rural settlement where families live on spacious rural lots and rely on nearby towns for concentrated commercial activity.
For a family considering Cedar Grove, the practical questions revolve around growth, capacity, and instructional support. The rapid population growth means the school may become more crowded unless the bond referendum passes. The low-proficiency results warrant a direct conversation with the school about what literacy and math instruction looks like, what support exists for students below grade level, and what the school's plan is to move proficiency up. The heavy concentration of economically disadvantaged students suggests the school is serving families with limited means; understanding whether the school has robust special-education, English-learner, and intervention services is essential. State testing data was not available for special-education rates or English-learner enrollment, so a parent should ask the school about those populations directly.
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