Three public elementary schools in Craven County received overall grades in the C range in Niche’s latest evaluations—the lowest marks among the county’s operating elementary schools.
The 2027 evaluations give two schools a C+ and one a C. Their report cards point to academic challenges, but also highlight strengths and student progress that deserve a closer look.
Niche considers academics, teachers, diversity and family feedback, among other factors. Here’s which schools received the lowest overall grades—and what’s behind those marks.
J.T. Barber Elementary School, New Bern — Overall Niche Grade: C+ (Tied)
J.T. Barber’s overall grade comes with an encouraging recent development: The school exited the state’s low-performing designation.
The New Bern school, part of Craven County Schools, serves preschool through fifth grade. Its Niche profile reports approximately 270 students and a 12-to-1 student-teacher ratio.
Niche gives teachers a B− and diversity an A−, both above its C for academics. The site reports 36% reading proficiency and 40% math proficiency, identifying those figures as results from North Carolina’s 2024–2025 assessments.
More recent district-published results for 2025–2026 show that J.T. Barber met academic growth expectations and exited low-performing status.
That doesn’t erase the proficiency concerns. It adds something useful to the conversation: evidence of progress alongside the overall grade.
Vanceboro-Farm Life Elementary School, Vanceboro — Overall Niche Grade: C+ (Tied)
At Vanceboro-Farm Life, reading and math tell noticeably different stories.
Niche reports that 45% of students reached math proficiency, compared with 34% in reading, on North Carolina’s 2024–2025 assessments. That 11-point difference gives families a more specific starting point than the overall C+ alone.
The Craven County Schools campus serves preschool through fifth grade, with approximately 494 students and a 16-to-1 student-teacher ratio. Niche awards academics a C, teachers a B− and diversity an A.
The school also met academic growth expectations in 2025–2026, according to the district’s published state results.
Its C+ is tied with J.T. Barber’s; neither school has a lower overall Niche grade than the other. For parents, the more practical question is how instruction and support address the skills their own child needs to strengthen.
Oaks Road Academy, New Bern — Overall Niche Grade: C
Oaks Road has the lowest overall Niche grade among Craven County’s operating public elementary schools. It also supplies the clearest reminder that achievement levels and student growth measure different things.
The preschool-through-fifth-grade school has approximately 352 students and an 18-to-1 student-teacher ratio, according to its Niche profile. Niche gives academics a C, teachers a C+ and diversity an A.
Its reported 2024–2025 proficiency rates are 36% in reading and 38% in math.
But the district’s 2025–2026 accountability results show Oaks Road exceeded academic growth expectations and exited low-performing status.
Those findings can coexist: A school can have relatively low proficiency while students make stronger-than-expected progress. For families considering Oaks Road, that growth deserves attention alongside the C.
The Questions Behind the Grades
All three schools have academic results worth examining. Their report cards also contain strengths and recent progress that a “lowest grades” headline cannot fully convey.
Families can use these evaluations to ask focused questions about reading instruction, tutoring, student growth and classroom support. Student-teacher ratios offer context, too, but aren’t the same as average class sizes.
The useful question after seeing a school’s grade is what happens next—for the school, and for the child walking through its doors.
