Summary
Southern Alamance Middle is a public school in Graham, North Carolina, serving 822 students in grades 6 through 8 within the Alamance-Burlington Schools district. The school earned a 2-star rating and ranked in the 32nd percentile of North Carolina middle schools for 2025-2026—a meaningful rebound from the previous two years, though still below its pre-pandemic standing. Among local peers, it ranks below Hawfields Middle and Western Alamance Middle, but above Woodlawn Middle, Turrentine Middle, Broadview Middle, and Graham Middle. The comparison with Hawfields is especially instructive: both schools serve similar populations with comparable poverty rates, yet Hawfields posts proficiency rates 20–30 points higher across most subjects—evidence that strong results are achievable within the same district.
Academically, Southern Alamance shows real strengths in 8th-grade science (62% proficient) and 7th-grade reading (53.5%), both above district averages. The school's biggest weakness is 6th-grade math, where only 39.6% of students are proficient—nearly 20 points below the state average and the only score to drop significantly this year. Encouragingly, the 2025-2026 school year brought sharp gains for several student groups that had struggled in prior years, including English Language Learners, special education students, and students from low-income households. These groups moved from the bottom 1–15th percentile statewide into the low-to-mid 20s, suggesting targeted interventions may be taking hold. Gifted students also improved from the 12th to the 48th percentile.
The school's biggest ongoing concern is chronic absenteeism. At 35.0%, it is well above the state average of 24.2% and higher than Hawfields' 26.0%, even though Southern Alamance serves a lower-poverty population than many area schools. Additionally, the school spends less per student ($8,216) than most neighboring middle schools, with a higher student-teacher ratio of 18.2. After a multi-year decline, the 2025-2026 rebound offers a foundation to build on; the key questions for families are whether the school can maintain its momentum, close the 6th-grade math gap, and make meaningful progress on attendance.
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