Sampson County Schools is beginning to see student improvements in testing, however many of those schools are still falling short of expectations, with eight being designated as Target Support and Improvement schools for low-performing subgroups.

According to data released from the state Department of Public Instruction and detailed to the county Board of Education last week, TSI is a federal designation for schools that have continually underperforming student subgroups for at least two of the last three years. Those eight schools will have to make school improvement plans to submit to the Board of Education at the Oct. 21 meeting.

These eight schools include: Union High School, Hobbton Middle School, Roseboro-Salemburg Middle School, Union Middle School, Midway Middle School for, Salemburg Elementary School, Union Intermediate and Union Elementary.

Susan Warren, the system’s director of accountability and student services, used the Sept. 17 board work session to go over the results of the state testing data for all the county schools during 2023-24. Along with delivering the results of the data, Warren brought in the executive directors of the elementary, middle and high schools to go over the plans to support all of the teachers across the district to bring the scores up for the next year — which will be featured in Wednesday’s paper.

“In looking at the past, you know, we keep talking about the COVID times. Where we were before COVID, how we declined after COVID, and we were bouncing back,” Warren told the board. “We hadn’t quite …we hadn’t got to where we were before COVID. We’ve seen more leveling.”

Warren said subgroups for students who are Hispanic, English learners, in foster care, technologically disadvantaged, black and Asian were above the state average in testing.

“A lot of times, you think these are the subgroups we’re talking about closing the achievement gap or the undeserved subgroups. And I think we’re doing a good job, comparatively, but there’s still work to be done,” Warren stressed.

And although 53 percent of schools in the district met or exceeded academic growth expectations, Warren stated the testing scores were not as good as they could have been. She pointed out that the reading scores for the elementary and middle schools showed a decline while there was a slight increase at the high school level. Math scores showed decline at the elementary, middle school and high school levels. Science declined at both elementary and middle school levels, but biology did have a slight increase at the high school level.

Warren did say the county schools were above the state average in academic proficiency.

“In our overall high school, 9-12, we’re above the state average. Math is one where we’re above the state average. Math three and math at grade four. So those are areas where we are at or above the state average,” Warren explained.

As for the achievement grades, Warren told the board that 72.7 percent of Sampson County Schools received a performance letter grade of an A, B, or C — which is higher than the state average of 66.6 percent.

Warren stated that even if the schools didn’t reach the highest proficiencies, that did not mean they didn’t make improvements over the last year.

She pointed out that Lakewood High School had the most improved composite score with an increase of 6 percent.

Midway Elementary had the most improved composites for EOG with 5.4 percent.

Hobbton High School had the most improved overall graduation cohort rate with a 4.7 percent increase, and Sampson Early College had the more improved percent with WorkKeys ACT with an increase of 1.9 percent.

Hobbton Elementary had the biggest increase for reading, math and science across the county, and Union Middle School achieved the highest reading grades at the sixth-grade level, the highest math and science gains in the eighth-grade level.