Sept 23, 2026
Dr. Lisa Fletcher
Superintendent, Transylvania County Schools
On Wednesday, September 2, the state released its test results for the 2025–26 school year, and Transylvania County Schools had a lot to celebrate. I’d like to talk less about the scores themselves and more about what it took to earn them.
I think of our results as a mosaic. From a distance, a mosaic looks like one big picture. Up close, you see that it’s made of hundreds of small pieces, each one set in place by hand. Our test scores are the picture people see from across the room. The pieces are the work that happened every day for more than a year.
That work didn’t start on the first day of school. It started last summer, as soon as the 2024–25 school year ended and our teachers and administrators began planning for the next one. It continued through fall and winter, right up to end-of-year testing in May. It included overtime hours, weekend study sessions, tutors, volunteers who gave their time, and parents who checked homework at the kitchen table after a long day. There were tears along the way, and plenty of laughter too.
Then all of that was measured by a test on a single day.
A test score tells us how a student did on one morning. It can’t tell us whether that child ate breakfast, whether things were hard at home before the bus came, or whether they were just glad to have clean clothes that day. Our teachers know these students, and they show up for them no matter what kind of morning it’s been. That is part of the work, too.
A test also can’t capture the smiles in an elementary classroom when students write their first lines of code. It can’t capture the fun of a parachute game that quietly teaches left from right, or a perfect spelling test headed for the refrigerator door. It misses the high-fives and hugs students share with their teachers. Those moments are pieces of the mosaic, and they matter.
Every mosaic has a few spots that need attention, and ours does too. We’ll look closely at those areas and keep improving, because that’s what good schools do. But I don’t want those spots, or even the high scores, to overshadow the effort behind them.
Our teachers work day and night so our students can succeed, and they do it while meeting some of the most demanding state requirements in the country. As we celebrate strong results across our county this year, I hope we’ll also celebrate the people who made them possible.
A mosaic is beautiful because of the care put into every piece. To our teachers, students, staff, families, tutors, and volunteers: you are the artists. Thank you, and congratulations.
Dr. Lisa Fletcher is superintendent of Transylvania County Schools. She earned a master’s degree in education and a doctorate in educational leadership from Western Carolina University and is a member of the North Carolina Association of School Administrators. She can be reached at lfletcher@tcsnc.org.