North Carolina just handed out its yearly report cards, and the headline number is genuinely good: North Carolina students improved their ACT performance by more than 13% in 2025, and more of them are taking Advanced Placement courses. The letter grades underneath that number tell a more sobering story.
The 2025 School Report Cards from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction cover all 2,702 schools in the state. Here is how the letter grades broke down among the schools that received one.
| Grade | Schools |
|---|---|
| A | 179 |
| B | 491 |
| C | 956 |
| D | 628 |
| F | 119 |
Add it up and the picture sharpens. A total of 747 schools earned a D or an F, while 670 earned an A or a B. The single most common grade, by a wide margin, was a C. In other words, the same year that ACT scores climbed, more schools were graded below average than above it. College enrollment also slipped slightly, even as more students loaded up on advanced coursework.
That gap is worth understanding before anyone panics or celebrates. North Carolina's grades lean heavily on raw test scores rather than on how much a school moves its students, so schools in higher-poverty communities tend to grade lower regardless of the progress happening inside them. A rising ACT average and a wall of C's and D's are not actually contradictory. They are two different measures of the same year.
How the Triad Did
The results looked uneven across the Triad, the Greensboro and Winston-Salem region.
| District | Schools | A grades | F grades |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guilford County Schools | 111 | 12 | 4 |
| Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools | 72 | 5 | 14 |
| Alamance-Burlington | 36 | 1 | 8 |
Guilford County Schools earned the Triad's most A's with 12, and just 4 of its 111 schools received an F, though most of the district landed at a C or D. About 90% of Guilford educators were rated effective or highly effective.
Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools came in relatively flat compared with 2024. Five of its 72 schools earned an A and 14 received an F, and fewer schools exceeded their growth targets. On the brighter side, more students are taking advanced classes, with roughly 50 more in Advanced Placement courses and about 200 more in dual-enrollment courses than the year before.
Alamance-Burlington Schools had the roughest year of the three. It earned a single A, at its Early College campus, while 8 of its 36 schools received an F. The number of low-performing schools rose from 15 in 2024 to 20 this year, and 27 schools did not meet their growth status. The district did see about 300 more students enroll in AP courses than in 2024.
The most useful thing a parent can do with a report-card release is ignore the statewide averages and look up their own building. A district's total says little about the specific school your child walks into, and a school's growth status often matters more than its letter. You can search any individual school on the state's North Carolina School Report Card site to see its grade, its test scores, and whether it is actually moving students forward.
Sources
WFMY News 2: NC releases report cards for schools statewide
North Carolina School Report Card, NC Department of Public Instruction
