Sampson County Schools and all those that fall under its umbrella, particularly students and teachers, have earned tremendous bragging rights for their stellar academic performance on recently released state tests measuring strides made in the 2016-17 school year.

Those strides earned Clement Elementary an A+ from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Sampson Early College High School an A and the school system a ranking of 18th statewide for student performance.

Those kind of accolades deserve not only our applause but the kudos and attention of the entire county, which should stand up and take note of the giant steps the system has made over the course of the last few years.

State test results show that for 2016-17, Sampson County Schools overall composite End of Grade and End of Course score was 65.9 percent, up nearly 5 points from the year before and up nearly 9 points from the 2014-15 school year. That kind of spike doesn’t just happen; it takes hard work and determination to increase performance at those levels.

What’s more, the increases can be trailed to improvements in more schools throughout the system. In this year’s report, 11 schools exceeded growth on the state tests as compared to 6 just a year earlier, and Roseboro-Salemburg Middle, showed enough improvement to be taken off the list of low performing schools.

And yet another good sign, not one of the county schools received a grade lower than a C in the report.

We agree with superintendent Dr. Eric Bracy’s assessment: parents and the community as a whole “can be very proud of the fact” that state test results show remarkable improvements among county school students.” And every teacher, every administrator and every staff member, from cafeteria workers to bus drivers and custodians, deserves thanks for the contributions each made toward that success.

It takes an entire school and that school’s community to support child and their academic achievements. By the looks of this year’s scores, Sampson County Schools has certainly had that support from all directions.

Is there academic work to be done? Certainly. Real educators never accept where they are as the best; they are always striving to have their students do better. But this year’s test scores show that Sampson County Schools is certainly on an upward swing that we all hope can continue year after year.