The Alamance-Burlington school system is no longer designated as a low-performing school district, based on the latest annual academic results released Wednesday by the state Department of Public Instruction (DPI).
A low-performing district is one in which a majority of individual schools are designated as low-performing due to receiving a School Performance Grade of D or F, under a state law that the General Assembly passed in 2013 that established the A to F letter grades.
ABSS had been among the 20 worst school systems in the state for 2024-25 – after 20 of the 36 schools received a D or F – marking the first time that the school system as a whole had been designated as low-performing since the state began using its current academic evaluation criteria in 2013-14.
ABSS was not listed among the 10 North Carolina K-12 public school systems to be designated as a low-performing district for 2025-26, based on the list of low-performing districts that DPI released Wednesday along with its annual report on student achievement.
For 2024-25, ABSS had been among 23 of the state’s 115 public school systems to be labeled as low-performing.
Twelve ABSS schools (33 percent of 36 schools that receive School Performance Grades) have been designated as low-performing for 2025-26. All 12 ABSS schools are also designated as continually low-performing after receiving a School Performance Grade of D or F for two of the past three school years, according to DPI (see accompanying chart).
By comparison, 20 ABSS schools (55.6 percent) that had been designed as low-performing for the 2024-25 school year, 19 of which were designated as continually low-performing, according to DPI.
End-of-Grade (EOG) and End-of-Course (EOC) test scores account for 80 percent of each school’s A to F letter grade; academic growth, or the progress that students make from one year to the next, accounts for the remaining 20 percent of the letter grade.
Earlier this summer, school officials had forecast that ABSS would no longer be designated as a low-performing district after preliminary results from end-of-course and end-of-grade tests showed an increase of 7 percentage points in students’ grade-level proficiency by the end of the 2025-26 school year.
The academic results that DPI released Wednesday showed an overall increase of 6.8 percentage points in grade-level proficiency among ABSS students in 2025-26, compared to a statewide average improvement of 4.2 percentage points in grade-level proficiency for all N.C. public school students.
Approximately 50 percent of ABSS students were grade-level proficient by the end of 2025-26, compared to 43 percent of students who were grade-level proficient by the end of the previous school year, according to DPI.
Grade-level proficiency by subject for 2025-26 versus previous year
At the elementary and middle school levels:
- The percentage of ABSS students in grades three through eight who were grade-level proficient (GLP) in English Language Arts was 47.1 percent in 2025-26, compared to 38.8 percent GLP the previous year [Statewide, 55.7 percent of all students were GLP in English Language Arts in 2025-26];
- The percentage of students in grades three through eight who were GLP in math was 48.8 percent, compared to 44.9 percent in 2024-25 [Statewide, 59.6 percent of all students were GLP in math];
- The percentage of students in fifth and eighth grade GLP in science was 58.1 percent, compared to 49.8 percent for the previous school year [Statewide, 68.1 percent of students in fifth and eighth grade were GLP in science in 2025-26].
[Story continues below chart showing three years of school grades.]
At the high school level:
- The percentage of students who were GLP in English II was 54.8 percent in 2025-26, compared to 49 percent GLP in 2024-25 [Statewide, 64.3 percent of high school students were GLP in English II in 2025-26];
- The percentage of students who were GLP in Math 3 was 59.8 percent, compared to 58.4 percent GLP in 2024-25 [Statewide, 68.9 percent of students were GLP];
- The percentage of students who were GLP in Biology was 49.6 percent in 2025-26, compared to 39.8 percent GLP in Biology for the previous school year [Statewide, 58.5 percent of students were GLP in 2025-26].
The designation as a low-performing district for 2024-25 required ABSS officials to develop a plan, with specific and measurable goals, to improve the School Performance Grades for each low-performing school, as well as the school system as a whole.
Statewide, 522 traditional K-12 and public charter schools have been identified as low-performing based on their academic results for 2025-26, according to DPI.
The academic results for 2025-26 are currently scheduled to be presented to the school board at its next semi-monthly meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
