Southwestern Randolph High School

Southwestern Randolph High School is a comprehensive public high school in Asheboro, NC, serving 801 students in grades 9–12 as part of the Randolph County School System. With roughly 56% of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, the school serves a majority low-income community, and its student-teacher ratio of about 17 to 1 and per-pupil spending around $8,889 are comparable to nearby schools. The school's statewide ranking has declined sharply over the past decade: it earned 3-star ratings and ranked in the 56th–64th percentile as recently as 2016–2018, but has since dropped to a 1-star rating in the 19th percentile statewide (537 out of 662 high schools).

Academically, Southwestern Randolph trails both the district and state on every End-of-Course exam. Only 20.0% of students are proficient in Math I—less than half the state rate of 42.1%—while Math III proficiency (44.9%) trails the state (68.9%) by 24 points, and Biology (41.4%) trails by 17 points. English II (56.9%) is the school's strongest tested subject but still falls short of the state's 64.6%. In the local landscape, Southwestern Randolph outranks Eastern Randolph High School, but trails Wheatmore High School, which posts significantly higher scores in every subject area, and also ranks slightly below Randleman High School.

There are encouraging signs as well. The school's chronic absenteeism rate improved dramatically to 19.6%—better than the district (22.5%) and state (24.2%) rates, and far better than Eastern Randolph High School (47.2%), Asheboro High (29.1%), and Randleman High School (22.7%). Graduation rates have also been a relative strength, reaching 90.5% in 2025-26 and 94.2% in 2024-25, above the state average. However, low proficiency across nearly all student subgroups—including gifted students, who rank in the 8th percentile statewide—suggests that math readiness and academic differentiation remain the school's biggest opportunities for growth.