Twenty-two (61 per-cent) of the 36 Alamance-Burlington schools received a School Performance Grade of C or better for the 2025-26 school year, based on the latest annual academic results released Wednesday by the state Department of Public Instruction (DPI).
It was the highest cumulative number of A, B, and C grades that the school system has received over the past five years.
The School Performance Grades improved at 15 (41.7 percent) ABSS schools in 2025-26, while the A to F letter grades remained unchanged at 21 (53.8 percent) schools from the previous school year (see accompanying chart for a breakdown of schools where the letter grades improved).
The academic performance results represent a substantial improvement from the previous school year, when 20 out of 36 schools (or 55.6 percent) received a grade of D or F, placing ABSS in the bottom 20 percent of North Carolina’s 115 public school systems (see related story, this edition).
The state’s annual School Performance Grades are intended to give parents and the public a snapshot of the percentage of K-12 public school students who were performing at grade level (i.e., grade-level proficient) by the end of the school year.
At the elementary and middle school level, the state’s School Performance Grades are based on annual end-of-grade (EOG) test results in reading and math for grades three through eight and fifth and eighth grade science.
The School Performance Grades for high schools reflect not only end-of-course (EOC) test scores in math, English II (which are no longer reported separately), and biology, as well as scores on college entrance exams; completion rates in advanced math courses; English-language learner progress; four-year graduation rates; and results on workplace readiness skills tests.
The distribution of School Performance Grades for ABSS in 2025-26 was: A (1); B (7); C (14); D (11); and F (2).
DPI assigns a numerical score for each School Performance Grade according to the following 15-point scale:
- A: 85-100
- B: 70-84
- C: 55-69
- D: 40-54
- F: Less than 40
EOG, EOC, and other test scores account for 80 percent of each school’s letter grade. Academic growth – which reflects progress made between one school year and the next – accounts for 20 percent of each school’s letter grade, according to DPI.
The ABSS Early College, housed on Alamance Community College’s Graham campus, remains the only school to receive a School Performance Grade of A, based on annual End-of-Course test scores and other academic performance data released Wednesday by DPI. (For a breakdown of the A to F letter grades issued for each ABSS school, see End-of-Grade and End-of-Course testing results for 2025-26.)
The number of ABSS schools that received Bs more than doubled from 2024-25, when Smith Elementary and Hawfields Middle schools were the only two schools that received Bs.
In 2025-26, seven schools received Bs: E.M. Yoder; Garrett; and Smith Elementary schools; Hawfields Middle School; and Eastern, Southeast, and Western High schools, according to DPI’s annual report.
Fourteen (38.9 percent) schools received Cs in 2025-26, compared to 13 (36.1 percent) that received Cs based on their academic performance results for the previous school year.
Eleven (36.1 percent) ABSS schools received a grade of D in 2025-26, compared to 12 schools (33.3 percent) that received Ds in 2024-25.
ABSS experienced a dramatic decline in the number of schools that received Fs in 2025-26. The preceding (2024-25) school year, eight schools received Fs. In 2025-26, Eastlawn Elementary, North Graham Elementary, and Graham Middle schools received Fs, as they also had in 2024-25, according to DPI.
Two schools do not receive School Performance Grades: the Career and Technical Education Center and the alternative school for ABSS, Ray Street Academy in Graham. Those students’ test results are reflected in the results for the traditional high schools to which they are assigned based on the location of their residences.
The Alamance Virtual School receives one letter grade for both the middle and high school grade spans. It originally opened for kindergarten through 12 grade in the fall of 2021, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, but later eliminated the elementary school grades, due to what ABSS officials have attributed to declining enrollment every year since.
ABSS superintendent: ‘This is a foundation, not a finish line’
ABSS officials highlighted the academic gains following DPI’s release Wednesday, noting in a release that the overall percentage students who were grade-level proficient (GLP) by the end of 2025-26 had improved by 6.8 percent across the school system, compared to a statewide average improvement of 4.2 percent in the percentage of students performing at grade level.
“This progress didn’t happen by accident, and it didn’t happen overnight. It is the direct result of our teachers, principals, and support teams putting their heads down and doing the heavy lifting every single day. We set high expectations, backed our educators with the right tools and training, and our students proved what they are capable of achieving.”
– ABSS superintendent Dr. Aaron Fleming
Overall, 50 percent of ABSS students were grade-level proficient by the end of 2025-26, according to an analysis posted Wednesday on DPI’s state testing dashboard.
ABSS behind state average
However, the percentage of ABSS students who were grade-level proficient by the end of 2025-26 trailed the statewide average (59.2 percent of all K-12 students were grade-level percentage) by 9.2 percentage points, according to DPI.
ABSS officials also highlighted the fact that the number of ABSS schools that either met or exceeded academic growth targets increased from nine in 2024-25 to 31 of 36 schools in 2025-26.
School officials attributed the academic improvements, in part, to such things as additional coaching and early-warning data that enabled teachers to tailor their instruction to individual students’ needs, according to the news release from ABSS.
The school system’s administrators also credited Alamance County’s commissioners with providing additional funding that was used to hire instructional coaches at the eight schools that had received Fs in 2024-25. Five of the eight schools that had received Fs in 2024-25 improved their letter grades in 2025-26, ABSS officials noted in their release.
At the same time, ABSS superintendent Dr. Aaron Fleming acknowledged, “This achievement is a foundation, not a finish line.
“This is a banner year from ABSS and we celebrate this moment because our staff and students earned it,” Fleming said Wednesday. “Mainly, this data confirms that our strategies work. We now have a roadmap, and we will dig into the data released today to help maintain this momentum until every single school in our district reaches its full potential.”
The academic results for 2025-26 are currently scheduled to be presented to school board members at their next semi-monthly meeting on Tuesday afternoon, school board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves said last week in an interview with The Alamance News.
