Ramsey Street High

Ramsey Street High is a very small public high school in Fayetteville, NC, serving just 39 students in grades 9–12 within Cumberland County Schools, and it has ranked at or near the very bottom of North Carolina’s high school ratings for more than a decade, coming in 632nd out of 662 schools statewide in 2025–2026. Chronic absenteeism is the defining challenge: roughly 75.7% of students missed significant school time in 2024–2025, compared with 33.7% across Cumberland County Schools and 24.2% statewide — even Douglas Byrd High, another high-poverty school nearby, had a rate of 64.5%.

Test proficiency is dramatically below district and state averages in every subject. In the most recent testing year, only 6.7% of Ramsey students scored proficient in Math I versus 44.5% districtwide; English II proficiency was 28.9% versus 63.0% districtwide; Biology was 21.7% versus 58.8%; and Math III was 26.9% versus 65.9%. These results are striking because Ramsey spends about $25,524 per student — roughly two to three times more than nearby schools like E E Smith High or Douglas Byrd High — and has an extraordinary 4.3 students per teacher. High spending and tiny class sizes have not produced stronger academic outcomes, which points to serious non-academic barriers, particularly attendance and engagement.

Ramsey’s free/reduced-price lunch rate was 56.4% in 2024–2025, notably lower than neighboring schools like E E Smith High at 99.7%, suggesting poverty alone does not explain its performance. With only 39 students, year-to-year percentages can swing sharply, but the bottom-tier pattern has remained remarkably consistent for over a decade. Parents should understand that Ramsey operates as a specialized or nontraditional setting rather than a typical comprehensive high school — and that within about a mile, Cross Creek Early College and Cumberland International Early College rank among the very best high schools in the state, posting vastly higher proficiency and dramatically lower absenteeism.