Randolph County Presents 2024–25 School Performance Data and Flags Staffing Gaps

At a September board meeting, Randolph County curriculum staff reviewed the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's 2024–25 school performance data and described how the state's accountability model assigns school grades.

Meredith, a curriculum and instruction staff member, told the board that "80% of the overall grade comes from the assessments" while 20% of the school performance grade comes from growth measures. She walked the board through subgroup reporting (race/ethnicity, economically disadvantaged students, English learners and students with disabilities) and federal ESSA long-term goals for reading, math and graduation cohorts.

Board members and staff discussed how the accountability model designates low-performing schools, targeted support categories and cohort-based graduation rates. Meredith explained that some schools experienced large numeric gains but did not meet the state's growth metric because of how student-level projections and subgroup compositions are applied.

In the same segment, district staff reported there were 88 open positions (combined classified and certified) as of this reporting period, down from 127 one year earlier. Staff said the district remains focused on aggressive recruiting and faster posting of vacancies: "Our principals are interviewing as hard as they can when they have a job that becomes open," Meredith said.

Board members praised improvements in several schools and discussed the technical details of the accountability and cohort systems. The presentation concluded with questions about how the state's accountability model could change and how local staffing trends may affect future performance measures.