The North Carolina State Board of Education recently released its latest performance results, and one local district has soared to the top.

"Carolina Impact's" Jason Terzis takes us inside their success, revealing which district earned the top spot and how they did it, and what other school systems can learn from their playbook.

- Well, due to a number of factors, it can sometimes be challenging for larger school districts to have sustained success.

But Union County, which is the sixth largest public school system in the state, showing that it can in fact be done.

Ranking number one in North Carolina for overall end of grade test scores, with an average proficiency rate of nearly 71%, which is significantly higher than the state average of 55%.

So how'd they do it?

- Shai?

Give me an example of an action verb.

Bring up the energy a little bit for me.

- [Jason] At Sun Valley Middle School in Indian Trail, Nicole Darko reviews the various types of verbs with her students.

- Melanie, what's another type of verb?

We have action verbs on the screen.

What's another type?

- [Jason] Nicole's been doing this a long time, now in her 23rd year teaching.

- We all should feel confident about action verbs, and so we wanna make sure that kids are exposed to new words, but also have a good foundation of the words that all eighth graders should know.

- [Jason] Nicole is just one of many teachers and administrators responsible for Sun Valley moving from a D grade to a B grade in overall performance, the highest growth rate of all the schools in the state.

- We were at 54, which is a D, to a 77, which placed us in about the top 6% of all middle schools in North Carolina.

- Many who had never passed an EOG ever, passed last year.

- [Jason] Improved student performance isn't something just happening at Sun Valley, it's countywide.

- We're gonna go to Ms.

Johnson in the morning, but she's going to cover all of the stuff that Ms.

Marks-Wear was doing with math.

- [Jason] At Wingate Elementary, AJ Wallace enjoys lunch with his daughter.

- She loves it.

She gets up early in the morning, she's ready to go.

- [Jason] A product of Union County schools himself, AJ has sent all four of his kids through the system, and he's glad he did.

- Every teacher is pushing to the max, giving a 120%.

You know, retired police officer.

I have so much respect for the school system and the teachers, of what they're doing, and what they're giving, to pour into each and every student.

- [Jason] A look inside the number shows Union County has 53 public schools, with nearly 41,000 students.

At nearly 71%, ranking is the state's highest in overall end of grade testing proficiency, which includes math, reading, and science.

That's nearly 16 points higher than the state average of just 55%.

90% of county schools earned an A, B, or C rating, three of which moved out of low-performing status.

And the 2025 graduation rate of just over 93% is the highest among the state's 12 largest school districts.

- I think the last three to four years, if you look at our data, you'll see very sharp incremental steps towards becoming that number one district.

- [Jason] Union County public school officials point to three main steps the district took in order to achieve this sort of progress.

- Number one, we've really doubled down on our lowest performing schools.

We saw monumental growth and strength in some of our schools that were identified as low performing.

That was accomplished through a series of research-based strategies we've put into place.

Number two, we focused really hard on core subjects that we are getting strong gains in.

Probably the number one being mathematics performance.

And then the third one was a strong focus on our middle grades.

We saw that children were performing at very high rates in elementary, same with high school, but historically, taking a regressive dip when they hit sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.

- [Jason] So how'd they do it?

Well, a number of factors played a role, starting with just plain old dedication.

- There's just been a real commitment here in this district in making sure that we get it right.

- Everything starts from the top.

But in order to be successful, you have to have a team, and I think Union County has a great team.

- That whole idea of every school must be a quality school and must be a great choice for families, no matter their ZIP code.

That has been a big focus of ours.

- [Jason] Data also played a big part.

In areas identified as lacking, additional resources were allocated.

- We do a lot of professional learning communities, teachers getting together and talking about our kids, analyzing our student, you know, performance data and figuring out what are students doing well, where do they need help, how do we help them?

- [Jason] Then came the curriculum, which is all created locally, not some national apply-to-all implement everywhere plan.

- I think sometimes if you have a prefab curriculum, it's not as meaningful to the students.

You know, it's not at where they are, their experiences.

- [Jason] It also involves support, giving kids what they need to be successful and holding them accountable to do their part.

- I do a lot of analogies with athletes and I talk about, you know, we're building weight.

So if I'm asking you to carry something that's 50 pounds, that's because on the EOG, they're gonna ask you to carry something 40 pounds.

So I'm preparing you so that it's easy.

It's gonna feel like light work at the end.

- [Teacher] Okay, we have, a ski rental shop charges $45 for three hours of equipment rental.

On the same day, they charge $75 for five hours of rental.

- [Jason] And then perhaps the biggest piece, tutoring.

Not voluntary, but mandatory.

- The three focuses are fourth grade math, seventh grade math and math one in ninth grade.

Every day you receive a double dose of math.

You have your core math block and then you have a pullout of math tutoring on top of that.

And that's five days a week, non-negotiable, three to one, small group instruction.

- Three hours gonna be your X, 45 is gonna be Y. So it's gonna be 45 over three.

- And for us, it's become a part of our culture.

It has become ingrained in just kinda what we do.

So much to the point that when kids leave fourth and seventh grade to go to fifth and eighth, they're wondering where their tutor is.

- [Jason] Add it all up, and Union County is making waves not only in North Carolina, but nationally.

- A friend of mine who lives in Connecticut, she's in education, called me and my wife a couple weeks ago, might've been two months, and said, "Hey, what are y'all doing in Union County?"

And we're like, "What are you talking about?"

"You're on the news in Connecticut," off the performance of what we're doing here.

- [Jason] So what lessons could other school districts perhaps take from Union County, and would what works here, work elsewhere?

- I think we've had some communication from other districts who wanna come here and visit.

We had one just visited recently last week.

- We're happy to show you, we're happy to have you come talk to our teachers, visit our schools, and we're happy to support you when you go back.

My question is always, a year later, how many have taken what we're doing and replicating?

One of the pitfalls I see a lot of K-12 systems making is they learn about something that's working, but they decide to ignore it because it's not their idea.

And my big rule of thumb that I preach all the time is, if there's someone out there in the charter, private or public setting, that's working and and getting better results than us, why would we not steal their idea and make it our own?

There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

Go steal the wheel, is what I say.

- Okay, Jason, what's next for Union County schools?

- Well, what's next is always what's next, which is the next challenge.

And the next challenge for Union County is keeping it up.

While they may not be able to duplicate this past year's increase in overall percentage from the previous year, because they've already made those significant strides, they can work to keep up those end of grade test scores high, the long-term goal is sustained success, and as we know for any organization in any capacity, that once you achieve a certain level, keeping it there, that becomes the main challenge.

- Absolutely.

It's just part of life.

But it's great to see that so close by, they're doing so well.

- Absolutely.

- Thanks for sharing their story.