See Clinton City results next
week; and grades by schools A?
For the most part, schools within the Sampson County Schools system met,and — in several cases — exceeded academic growth during the 2025-2026 school year, something that has local education officials optimistic about the progress now being made from elementary to the upper grades. On top of that, the school system saw an even better graduation rate than the one achieved last year, a rate that exceeded the state average.
On Wednesday, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction released the 2025-26 academic reports, including test results, which show how schools did on such things as end-of-course and other standardized tests and graduation rates, both which, state education officials noted, showed “promise” with regard to continued improvement of student achievement.
Many of the county schools and, thus, its students, mirrored those academic achievements.
“I think it’s always nice when schools exceed growth,” noted Superintendent Dr. Jamie King in an interview on Thursday.
King was especially proud of the system’s graduation rate, which rose from an all-time high of 87 percent in 2025 to 89 percent in the 2025-26 school year.
That rate, he was quick to point out, exceeded the state, which landed at 88.8 percent, according to the released results.
The DPI release about the graduation rates noted that the state graduation rate rose to its own new historic high, up from 87.8 percent in 2025.
Also important to note, King pointed out, was improvements in the Lakewood School district, where Lakewood High showed the highest growth among all Sampson County schools.
“We had three schools that exceeded growth, and that was Lakewood, Sampson Early College High School, and then Salemburg Elementary School,” King clarified.
“I don’t know our exact number, but I remember we were above the state average for schools that have an A-C letter grade system,” King added.
“It’s always nice when schools move letter grades,” he continued. “Hobbton Middle School went from a D to a C, so that’s always promising. Roseboro Elementary School went from a D to a C …definitely some improvements.”
Roseboro-Salemburg Middle School jumped nine points from the 2024-25 school year to 2025-26, and improved from the low-performing F to a D.
Reflecting on exceeding the state average in letter grades, King stated, “I think it shows the work that we’re doing improving our schools and the teaching and learning that we’re doing in our schools.”
Union High School was the only school whose growth dropped from last year.
“It’s weird,” King said regarding Union High’s reflected drop to the low-performing F.
He noted that while the high school’s growth score went down, “their proficiency score was the same as last year.”
Growth rates look at how much the schools grow from the previous year.
“Those two numbers are added together to give the school a kind of total grade,” King elaborated.
The superintendent noted that Sampson County Schools’ total composite scores had not been released as of Thursday.
At the next Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 15, King said a formal presentation of the proficiency and growth data will given.
“We’ll kind of compare it to the state averages; when I look at data, I like to see if we moved closer to the state average, did we move further away from it, or are we below the state average,” King explained.
The Board of Education will hold its next work session at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15 in the Sampson County Schools Auditorium, 437 Rowan Road, where the board will look further at some the high points among Sampson County Schools testing results. The regular meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 28. School board meetings are open for the public to attend.
Across the state, the DPI release noted, the percentage of students who were grade level proficient, the designation given to a score of a 3, 4 or 5 on EOG and EOG exams, was also the highest in the past three years for 14 of 15 reading and math tests. Additionally, results for all race and ethnicity subgroups were the highest of the past three years, reflecting, state educators noted, both progress across the full range of North Carolina’s student population and the need for continued improvement.
It is promising to see this continued improvement in student achievement in the 2025-26 accountability results,” NCDPI Chief Accountability Officer Dr. Michael Maher said in the prepared release. “From graduation rates to EOG and EOC scores and school performance grades, students and educators across North Carolina should be proud of this progress. At the same time, these results alone do not capture the full breadth of the important work happening in our public schools. The work of the Accountability Task Force gives us an opportunity to consider additional measures that, alongside academic achievement, can provide a more complete picture of student progress and how well schools are preparing students for what comes next.”