October 25, 2025
Smithfield Schools Post Lackluster Test Results
Leaders tout progress for county’s schools as a whole
By The Smithfield Weekly Sun
Three of Smithfield’s traditional public schools saw declines in percentages of their students scoring at Grade Proficient Level (GPL) in annual state testing results posted last week. One of them – Smithfield Middle – was downgraded from D to F, losing ground with a decline from 36.9% to 34.2% of its students scoring at GPL. It’s the only Johnston County school graded F.
Smithfield-Selma High registered a GPL decline from 42.7% in 2023-24 to 41.0% this past school year while West Smithfield Elementary declined from 43.1% 40.4% GPL. Even so, both schools maintained their state-measured grades of C.
South Smithfield Elementary showed a GPL gain from 39.6% to 41.6% yet continues to be graded D. Wilson’s Mills Elementary had the best showing among Smithfield’s traditional public schools by improving its overall GPL score from 48.7% to 50.3% and holding onto its C grade.
Neuse Charter School, meanwhile, raised its GPL from 58.5% to 62.9% yet continues to be graded C by the state. American Leadership Academy Johnston raised its state grade from D to C and reached a GPL of 57.3%.
For the county’s specialty schools based in Smithfield, the Innovation Academy at South Campus maintained its B grade, raising its GPL from 76.5% to 83.7%. Both the Career & Technical Leadership Academy and the Early College Academy housed on the campus of Johnston Community College with limited enrollments maintained their A grades with more than 95% of their students achieving GPL.
In announcing the past year’s state test results, leaders of Johnston County Public Schools cited several points of progress for the system as a whole:
• Johnston raised its ranking from 35th to 30th among the state’s 115 school districts based on overall performance data. “The improvement from 2024 has been due primarily to reading and math gains,” notes a news release from JCPS.
• Johnston’s overall Grade Proficient score rose from 56.4% to 57.2% – ahead of a statewide gain from 54.2% to 55.0%.
• The percentage of JCPS schools graded A, B, or C increased from 89% to 93%, “well above” the statewide average of 69%.
• Graduation rates for Johnston’s schools as a whole rose to 92.5% – above the statewide rate which rose to 87.7%.
More students taking AP courses, passing national tests
Assistant Superintendent Kristy Stephenson summarized results of annual state testing of students during Tuesday’s monthly meeting of the Johnston County Board of Education, then went further to tout some academic success that “isn’t part of the (state’s) accountability system.”
More Johnston County high-school students are enrolling in Advanced Placement courses, and they’re scoring higher on national AP tests, Ms. Stephenson reported.
In 2021, 890 students elected to take AP classes and 41.2% achieved passing grades on national AP tests. This past year 1,086 Johnston students took AP courses and 74.3% of them earned passing grades.
Board approves “initial” budget that’s “better than most”
With a final 2025-26 budget for Johnston County’s schools awaiting results of the N.C. General Assembly’s unfinished budget, Chief Financial Officer Stephen Britt presented an “initial” budget this week that avoids major spending cuts facing other school districts across the state just now.
“We’re in a better position than most,” Mr. Britt told the Board of Education Tuesday. He cited two reasons for that: (1) “very strong support from the County Commissioners” and (2) “stable enrollment with manageable growth” over the past several years.
The County Commissioners increased funding for Johnston’s schools by $6 million in the county’s budget for the new fiscal year that began July 1. Mr. Britt said the county’s appropriation of $110 million for school operations is supplemented by revenues from fines and forfeitures and $3.5 million from the schools’ Fund Balance to produce an operating budget totaling $113,909,884 – up from last year’s $108,032,190. The school board approved the new budget by unanimous vote.
Mr. Britt predicted that most of this year’s budgeted Fund Balance appropriation won’t be needed and is mainly in place to cover unforeseen expenditures. (Earlier during his presentation, he said it appears the school system ended the past fiscal year June 30 with a Fund Balance of about $14 million. An auditor’s report expected next month will produce the actual amount.)
Mr. Britt’s comment about “manageable growth” came in reference to this year’s 10th-day enrollment report for Johnston’s traditional public schools which showed a relatively modest gain to 37,126 students in class as of Monday of this week. Last year’s final enrollment total reported to the state was 36,519.
SRO contracts approved for 39 officers countywide
The Board of Education signed off on contracts for School Resource Officers, most of them provided by the Johnston County’s Sheriff’s Department, the others by five of Johnston’s municipalities for schools within their jurisdictions:
• Sheriff’s Department – 18 SROs plus one supervisor at an annual cost to the school system of $2,221,000.
• Town of Smithfield – seven SROs plus one supervisor, $739,110.
• Town of Clayton – seven SROs, $577,500.
• Town of Princeton – two SROs, $140,000.
• Town of Wilson’s Mills – one SRO, $60,500.
• Town of Pine Level – two part-time SROs, $48,000.
Lesser amounts of funding to be provided by the individual departments for SROs are not listed in the contracts approved by the school board this week.
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Home school, it works.
Money well spent……NOT
Town of Clayton actually has nine SROs plus a supervisor. Maybe only seven on contract, but they have one in every school except for the high school, where they have two.
Public school works as well. You just have to have students who want to learn. Hence the high AP passing rates. You also get exposed to teachers who may just be experts in their field. Something homeschoolers will never be exposed to.
Homeschoolers have access to experts in the field as well. Each one of us that homeschools don’t need experts to teach as we are the experts and if we don’t know something, we seek out the answer and a resource for it. Homeschoolers are often exposed to more than public students are since they have more time outside a classroom to learn, work jobs, and participate in extracurricular activities. Expertise in a field means nothing; look at Fauci who was “science” and an expert but got it all wrong. Most, if not all, of the great founders of this nation and great scientists of the past were homeschooled. Public school is new compared to the age of the world and this country.
I do agree with you though that the desire to learn makes a big difference. That’s where homeschool has the edge, those students want to learn because we have more flexibility to make it fun and engaging for the student which piques their interest and desire to learn more.
If you were an expert in every subject, you’d be the first person I ever met who was. But a History teacher who has a passion for history and is an expert in their field can inspire kids to foster a love of history. They can recite the interesting details of Mataoka’s life, and her interactions with John Rolfe and John Smith. The English teacher can instill a passion for literature that students would otherwise have no exposure to. You say home school teachers have “an edge” in making it interesting. Is there data to support that? The average person in the U.S. isn’t trained in teaching, nor are they experts in all the subjects. The only thing you consistently show is that you are an expert in believing political propaganda. Hence the Fauci comments.
As far as the founding fathers. John Adams-went to Harvard. Thomas Jefferson-College of William and Mary. James Madison-Princeton. Alexander Hamilton-Kings College/Columbia. George Washington- Attended a school in Fredericksburg and had private tutors. Ben Franklin- Boston Latin School though he did self educate with tons of reading. Your claim that most founding fathers were “homeschooled” simply isn’t accurate.
Those are all colleges, early education was at home with tutors and classical education.
Yes, they realized the importance of learning from experts, regardless of whether or not they spent some years learning from private tutors. Tutors are experts. Most didn’t learn everything from home (them and their parents), which is what you tried to imply.
Jen R, you are 100% right. The reason some of these people are questioning you is because of their own insecurities. What you describe as advantages to homeschooling is probably the best case scenario. Its hard for me to homeschool mine because im so dang busy. I pulled mine during the child abuse cult times of covid for 2years. It went fairly well, but was tough with my type of work as im busy. I myself was homeschooled about half my time between 6-17 years old, and public school the rest. My advice to anyone homeschooling their kids is that they must be a part of a community. So you can access each other and be able to provide the best of the group in specific areas to explain things in any given area…. if that makes sense. Public school attempts to provide that for you, but they are failing. My kids had a regular curriculum and all that for science, math, reading and such but the true learning was me teaching them what I do. Everything from cleaning to cooking, work responsibilities, buying things, making decisions. I simply included them in everything it takes to live. They are likely 10+ years ahead now from that alone. Anyone hating on people that are homeschooling their kids, should be helped. As they are inadequate and below par.
Wait I thought Eric Bracey kept on telling everyone the schools were doing great?
Exactly! Dude was a clown. Wolf in sheep’s clothing. Good riddance.
Now I know why bracey left so abruptly. He saw the scores and knew he didn’t do a good job… so he bolted to a country where just about the only place he could go was up.
I didn’t like Bracy as he was obsessed with test scores, but scores went up for the overall county, with Johnston moving from 35th to 30. This is one town.
PragerU can definitely turn all of this around. Anyone who has ever spent time in Smithfield knows most people who live there cannot read anyway.
PragerU is propaganda masquerading as an educational resource. People love to talk about the education system indoctrinating children, but in the same breath advocate for pushing alt-right values down children’s throats. Give me a break.
I don’t get it. If certain schools like innovation academy, early college and career tech schools did so well….. why doesn’t every school do what they are doing? Seems to me scores would all go up in every school. It’s always odd when I see certain schools doing well that the system doesn’t transfer the staff and admin to the schools that are struggling for the next few years to increase their proficiency levels. One of the struggling schools mentioned has had the same principal for 5 years and yet the staff has had at least 70% turn over in that same time. Bring the admin team and staff from the highest performing school to that school and see how much a difference it makes. Seems logical.
Thy do well because they have a very motivated student base. You can’t perform miracles of do the same things with less motivated students and with families who don’t value education as much.
You said it! Not valuing education is a tradition in Johnston County. Have you read the comments on this website? If I was homeschooled by some of these people, I would not know up from down.
So students in Smithfield are less motivated and parents in Smithfield don’t value education as much. Is that what you’re saying?
It all seems to be occurring in one location. I wonder why that could be? Might be worth looking into
Maybe they just need Turning Point USA clubs.
“Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.”…Proverbs 22:6
Start training them up in the way they should go and things will get better in schools and society. What is the “way” you ask? Jesus is the Way…John 14:6.
These things were written thousands of years ago and we keep denying their truth; trying to “re-invent the wheel”.