Leesville Road Elementary vs Poe Elementary

Leesville Road Elementary and Poe Elementary land at virtually the same overall rating — both score 8.9/10 — and sit just two spots apart in the North Carolina statewide rankings, with Leesville Road Elementary at #127 of 2648 and Poe Elementary at #129 of 2648. For parents focused on overall quality, that gap is statistically negligible. The meaningful differences emerge when you look at what's driving those scores.

Academics is where the two schools diverge most sharply. Leesville Road Elementary posts a 9.5/10 academic score versus Poe Elementary's 7.5/10 — a 2-point gap that translates to a meaningful difference in tested proficiency rates. Poe Elementary more than compensates on growth: its 9.8/10 growth score outpaces Leesville Road Elementary's 9.0/10, indicating that students at Poe are advancing at a faster relative rate regardless of where they start. A family prioritizing absolute achievement levels will prefer Leesville Road; a family prioritizing year-over-year academic gains will find Poe's growth trajectory compelling.

Demographically, the two schools serve different populations at different scales. Leesville Road Elementary enrolls 540 students compared to Poe Elementary's 292, making Poe considerably smaller. Poe's student-teacher ratio of 10.4:1 is tighter than Leesville Road's 13.5:1, meaning each teacher at Poe manages roughly three fewer students on average. Poe also serves a higher share of economically disadvantaged students — 48% qualifying for free or reduced lunch versus 32% at Leesville Road — context worth weighing when interpreting the academic score gap between the two schools.

One structural difference affects the youngest children: Poe Elementary serves Pre-K through grade 5, while Leesville Road Elementary begins at Kindergarten. Families with a pre-kindergarten-age child zoned to that side of Raleigh can enter Poe's pipeline a full year earlier without a school change. The two campuses sit 10.1 miles apart, so for most Raleigh families, geography will narrow the choice before any of these metrics do.