Dear Harnett County Parents, Staff, and Community Members:
We welcome you to the North Carolina Report Card site for Harnett County Schools. In early September, the State released test results from the 2022-2023 school year in a presentation to the State Board of Education. State results show that North Carolina students continued to recover ground lost to the COVID pandemic. Harnett County Schools' results for 2022-23 align closely with the state trends with increases in the percentage of students who are College and Career Ready (CCR) and students who are Grade Level Proficient (GLP).
The largest increase in CCR proficiency for Harnett County is grade 5 reading and grade 5 math, with increases of 4.3% and 4.8%. The smallest increase in CCR proficiency was grade 6 reading, with .6%. Overall, district reading proficiency in grades 3-8 continued to increase. Math proficiency in grades 3, 4, 5, and 8 increased in grade level performance, and reading proficiency increased in grades 3, 4, and 5, while grades 6 and 7 saw a decline in reading and math proficiency.
Overall, district math scores in elementary grades increased more significantly than reading scores, with grades 3, 4, and 5 demonstrating the greatest gains of 6.6 to 7.4%. The Harnett County scores on science exams, given at grades 5, also showed gains at both the CCR and GLP levels.
In Harnett County, 56% of schools met or exceeded growth, and of the schools designated low performing, 8 of those met growth. In Harnett, 61.5% of elementary schools met or exceeded growth, 66.7% of middle schools, and 50% of high schools met or exceeded growth.
Overall, in the school district, four schools exceeded growth, ten schools met growth, and 11 schools did not meet growth. Schools exceeding growth were Dunn Middle School, Harnett County Early College, Overhills Middle School, and Western Harnett Middle School. Schools that met growth include Boone Trail Elementary, Coats Elementary, Erwin Elementary, Highland Elementary, Highland Middle, Johnsonville Elementary, LaFayette Elementary, Lillington Shawtown Elementary, South Harnett Elementary, and Triton High School. Last year, four schools received a grade of F; this year, only two schools received a grade of F.
Much like the state, Math 3 and Biology scores increased in CCR and GLP percentages. With GLP seeing a 3.4% increase in Math 3 and a 3.0% increase in Biology.
Harnett County's 4-year graduation rate was 86.6%, which is slightly above the state average of 86.4%, and the 5-year graduation rate for Harnett County was 87.2%.
The state report noted that because of disruptions in teaching and learning caused by the pandemic, the accountability report for the 2022-23 school year is only the second since 2018-2019 to feature all elements of the state's accountability framework, including the calculation of growth designations and A-F School Performance Grades. While the state is working towards a new model for school performance grades, the current model continues to be 80% proficiency and 20% growth.
Harnett County has had two years of significant gains in proficiency. The challenge for the 2022-23 school year was growth. Dr. Aaron Fleming, Superintendent, shared, “While Harnett County Schools has 16 schools designated as low-performing, all but 7 of those schools met achievement goals. While we are moving in the right direction, we still have a ways to go. We are continuing to experience some of the impacts of the pandemic that affect learning, such as teacher retention, discipline concerns, chronic absenteeism, and mental health issues."