E B Frink Middle, La Grange NC - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on E B Frink Middle

E.B. Frink Middle serves grades six through eight in La Grange, a small rural town in western Lenoir County on North Carolina's coastal plain. The school enrolls students drawn primarily from La Grange and surrounding areas, with a student body that is substantially economically disadvantaged. Nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school is racially mixed, with students who are Black, white, Hispanic, and other backgrounds represented.

The school's most recent state testing results show proficiency rates below midpoints across the three subjects tested. In math, about four in ten students scored proficient or above on the End-of-Grade assessment. English language arts proficiency was comparable, also around four in ten. Science proficiency was slightly lower, again reflecting a pattern where fewer than half the grade six through eight students are meeting state standards in any tested area. A parent may want to ask the school directly whether these results align with prior years and what instructional adjustments or supports the school is prioritizing in response.

Frink sits in the Lenoir County Public Schools district, which serves a region of modest economic resources across several small towns and rural communities. The district is undertaking a major facility upgrade that directly affects this school. The current building is among the oldest still in use in the county. Construction on a new E.B. Frink Middle School facility began recently, with the new campus scheduled to open in spring 2027. The project is being funded primarily through a state capital grant, with supplemental support from the county and the district itself, structured so that no long-term bond debt falls on local taxpayers. Families with students currently at Frink will experience a transition, and younger siblings arriving in the coming years will enter a brand-new building.

The town of La Grange itself is small, with a compact historic core centered around Caswell and Washington Streets featuring modest downtown retail and dining, a public library, and civic spaces. The community is actively drawing new residential construction on its south side, with multiple new subdivisions aimed at buyers commuting to nearby Goldsboro, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, Kinston, and the Global TransPark. Home values in the area have been rising modestly. The overall regional employment base includes agriculture, light manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and military and aerospace activity. For families choosing this school, the appeal lies in a small-town setting with a known community trajectory, awareness that the facility situation is temporary with a new building coming, and a population that is economically and racially diverse, though academic performance is well below state benchmarks and warrants direct conversation with the school about its instructional plans and any tutoring or intervention systems in place.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grades 3-844%

School 44% · District 47% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

English language arts

Grades 3-843%

School 43% · District 43%

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Science

Grades 3-842%

School 42% · District 54% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

This schoolLenoir County Public Schools, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 6Lower-income31%Higher-income55%24 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income46%Higher-income43%3 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income40%Higher-income48%9 pp gap

Grades 3-8Lower-income38%Higher-income49%11 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income30%Higher-income58%28 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income55%Higher-income56%2 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income27%Higher-income48%22 pp gap

Grades 3-8Lower-income36%Higher-income53%17 pp gap