The state of North Carolina has created a “report card” for school and school systems across the state which offers a collection of up-to-date data about student achievement and attendance, class size, school safety, teacher quality, school technology and other topics of interest to parents and others in the school community.

You can visit the North Carolina School Report Cards Website to obtain information about your school or any other school across the state. The site was developed to provide the big and small pictures for many of the critical components of our students’ educational experience.

Beginning with the 2013-2014 school year, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction – under the directive of the N.C. General Assembly – is providing school letter grades for each public school in North Carolina along with the NC School Report Cards. These letter grades replace the school designations that have been used in the past with the ABC accountability model. The School Performance Grades are calculated using the following numbers: 80% is based on proficiency on state tests (high school grades include a few other measures, such as graduation rates and ACT scores) and 20% is based on student growth.

This is a narrow view of our students and our schools, and we don’t think that just a few measures completely reflect the quality of education our schools are providing. Please take a moment to read HCPS’ statement regarding the 2016-2017 School Performance Grades, and to see what else is happening in our schools beyond test scores.