Moore County outlines school-improvement process and posts October presentations after reporting rises in proficiency

Moore County Schools staff used the October work session to walk the Board of Education through its school improvement process, required public notifications and timelines, and recent student outcome data that district leaders said show sustained improvement.

Assistant Superintendent Jamie Simon described the school-improvement cycle as a data-driven planning process that begins with a comprehensive needs assessment and culminates in two-year improvement plans voted on by school staff. "What is school improvement? It's the process of analyzing through a comprehensive needs assessment our data to determine areas for improvement related to student learning," Simon said.

Simon told the board that statutory requirements (cited in the meeting as General Statute 115C-105.27 and related sections) require elected school improvement teams, open meetings, posted minutes and a staff vote on each school's plan. She said school safety plans are part of those documents but will be reviewed in closed session because they contain sensitive information.

Separately, district assessment director Kate Fall presented the 2024-25 outcome data. The district's composite grade-level proficiency (GLP) rose to 63.7%, up 1.3 percentage points from the prior year and 8.7 points above the statewide GLP reported for 2024-25. Moore County outperformed the state in most grade-level math and ELA assessments and recorded five-year highs in multiple grades, Kate Fall said.

Fall highlighted that Moore County scored ahead of the state in several areas: math proficiency was above the state in most grades, ELA reached five-year highs across tested grades and the district outperformed the state in science despite recent changes to the science assessment. She also reported that 66.6% of eleventh-graders met the ACT composite benchmark of 17 (the district noted the state and UNC system briefly changed the benchmark to 19 and then back to 17, complicating multi-year comparisons).

Board members discussed graduation rates and subgroup performance. Fall reported a 4-year cohort graduation rate of 89.6% for 2024-25, a slight decline of 0.2 points from the prior year but still above the state average. Staff identified continued focus areas including graduation, math in grade 8 and Math I, and support for low-performing schools.

Simon outlined the local schedule: board members will receive binders of each school's plan and may send questions to staff by Oct. 17; half the district's schools will present on Oct. 21 and 22; school safety plans will be reviewed in closed session; and final local approval is planned for November to meet state timelines.

Board Chair Jamie Calcutt and Superintendent Neil Locklear both praised the work. Locklear highlighted long-term, incremental improvement across the district, pointing out that Moore County has climbed in statewide rankings over recent years.

What happens next: binders and guest logins to NCSTAR will be provided to board members; principals will present their plans to the board on the October presentation dates; staff will recommend final approval at the November board meeting.