The top reported proficiency rate is 25% in English language arts. The lowest is 6% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on The Community Learning Center @ Pinckney
The Community Learning Center @ Pinckney is an alternative school serving grades 6-12 in Carthage, Moore County, North Carolina. It enrolls a small population of students, with the majority of its cohort in grades 9 and 10. The school is part of Moore County Schools, a district covering a growing part of the Sandhills region that includes expanding towns like Carthage, Southern Pines, and Pinehurst.
This is a Title I eligible population. A very substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the enrollment is economically disadvantaged by design. The racial composition is mixed: roughly half the school is white, with a significant Black enrollment and smaller Hispanic and multiracial populations. The enrolled population is quite small for a public school, reflecting the specialized nature of alternative education.
Academic results at the center are low. In the most recent testing year, proficiency on North Carolina's End-of-Grade assessments was well below standard: in English language arts, about a quarter of tested students reached proficiency; in math, roughly one in sixteen; in science, about one in eleven. These numbers reflect the reality that students in alternative settings often enter with prior academic difficulty or disengagement. The school's role is to serve students who have struggled in traditional educational pathways, which means incoming proficiency is typically lower and the measure of success is not always state test performance alone. A parent may want to discuss directly with the school what its goals are for individual students and what support systems or alternative measures of progress it uses.
State testing data were available only for the grades in which the state administered tests (grades 3 through 8 on this assessment); no high school proficiency data are provided because North Carolina does not report them in the same format. A graduation rate was not reported. These gaps reflect the nature of the data release rather than missing school results.
Carthage itself is a small historic county seat in the Sandhills region experiencing residential and commercial growth. The town has about a quarter of its buildings clustered around the Moore County Courthouse square in the downtown, with murals and public gathering spaces along the main streets. The Moore County Public Library is downtown, and Nancy Kiser Park sits on the edge of town. Housing values in the area have risen modestly in recent years. Several new residential subdivisions are under construction or approved, and the town completed a new Unified Development Ordinance in late 2024. Most regional employers—FirstHealth's hospital system, Pinehurst Resort, the recently announced Amazon last-mile facility—sit a short drive away in Pinehurst or Southern Pines rather than in Carthage itself, though Moore County government offices and Moore County Schools' central operations are in town.
Moore County Schools has undertaken significant capital investment in recent years. Three new K-5 elementary schools opened between 2020 and 2021 in Aberdeen, Southern Pines, and Pinehurst, financed by a voter-approved bond. In fall 2025, the district opened Moore Innovative High School on the Sandhills Community College campus, a tuition-free dual-credit pathway focused on skilled trades where students can earn an associate degree or industry certifications alongside a high school diploma. A bond referendum is scheduled for November 2026 to fund a replacement for the aging Carthage Elementary School on a new site outside town limits; that outcome will affect property taxes and where elementary students in the Carthage area attend school. The district has also benefited from a dedicated quarter-cent local sales tax approved by voters, which raises revenue annually for school facility debt and construction.
For families considering this school, the key questions are what wraparound supports it offers—counseling, behavioral health, tutoring, social-emotional learning—and how it defines student progress when state testing alone does not reflect the center's mission. Its location on Pinckney Road in Carthage places it within the wider district's ongoing capital improvements and the town's residential growth, but the academic pathway itself is alternative in nature and best suited to students for whom a traditional high school setting has not worked and who may benefit from smaller class sizes, individualized planning, and a pathway designed around their strengths rather than a single measure.
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