We’ve had plenty of occasions on this page to critique the poor performance of ABSS schools, administration, and school board over recent years.
But this week, we’re pleased to make an exception in order to offer congratulations on significant improvements in the annual statewide report on School Performance Grades.
Last year’s report was an all-time low, with 20 of 36 schools receiving grades of D or F, based on annual academic results released by the state Department of Public Instruction (DPI); in fact the performance was so low that the school system itself was listed as among the 20 worst school systems in the state.
Award-winning news coverage of schools
Whatever the scores, this newspaper takes pride in the thoroughness with which we cover these annual reports and other academic trends. Whatever the facts – good, bad, or indifferent – we’re going to provide our readers with the most comprehensive picture of local school performance.
We note that the newspaper is about to be honored for first place in education reporting among weekly newspapers of our size across the state in the North Carolina Press Association writing contest for our comprehensive coverage of last year’s (dismal) results.
The newspaper’s September 4, 2025 editorial on last year’s poor performance was a part of that honor, and, separately, has also been designated as the best editorial among weekly newspapers of our size in the National Newspaper Association Better Newspapers contest, as well.
Achievements are notable, but much improvement still needed
This year, the results are remarkably improved: 15 of 36 schools improved their letter grades, with only 13 remaining with Ds and Fs. The 3 Fs, while still disappointing, represent the lowest number in the past 5 years.
While much of the report shows that most schools in the school system are at “C”, or average, performance, there was at least an uptick with more schools than ever (7) getting a “B” grade.
Still, that means only 22 percent of schools are getting an A or B, which is where we’d like to see more schools achieving.
Earlier this summer, the school system bragged at great length to the commissioners about the “improvement” in some of the areas of test scores, based on preliminary results that are now confirmed.
However, the disappointing reality is that, even with improvement, fewer than half of all students were at grade-level proficiency in key academic areas. That was the case for high school biology.
In middle schools, despite some individual school “progress,” fewer than half of all students were proficient in English Language Arts (ELA) (6th, 7th, and 8th graders) and math (6th, 7th, and 8th graders). ELA supposedly captures students’ ability in reading, writing, and language comprehension.
And in elementary schools – again while showing some improvement at individual grade levels at some schools – fewer than half of all third, fourth, and fifth graders were proficient in ELA, according to DPI’s final grades.
So while there are encouraging signs in the new results, most of the county’s schools – and the school system as a whole – remain behind the state average.
Perhaps the best layman’s interpretation of the final grades may be that while many of the test scores are still pretty bad or mediocre (at best), at least they’re not as awful as they have been.
And that’s cause for (at least some) celebration.
More needs to be done, for sure, but at least this year’s scores change the trend lines – hopefully for the long term.
