The reported proficiency rate for Science is 15%.
Original Research by School Decision on Kingswood School
Kingswood School is a small alternative school serving pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in Winston-Salem, though its current enrollment is very small: only a handful of students distributed across elementary, middle, and high school grades, with no students currently in kindergarten, first, second, fourth, sixth, or seventh grade. This is the kind of setting where individual instruction and highly personalized learning would be feasible, but it also reflects the reality that alternative schools often serve students whose educational paths do not fit conventional school settings.
State testing data from recent years shows academic performance well below typical district levels. In mathematics and English language arts for grades three through eight, the school reported a proficiency rate at or very near zero, with no students meeting state standards in either subject in 2021-22. Science data from 2018-19, the most recent available, showed a small fraction of tested students meeting proficiency. These results likely reflect the school's alternative mission: it may enroll students working toward graduation or credit recovery, students who have struggled in traditional classrooms, or those pursuing non-traditional pathways. A parent may want to look into further detail with the school about its specific program design, student population, and academic or support goals, because standardized test performance alone does not describe what this school does or for whom it is intended.
The student body is small and racially mixed, with roughly equal shares of Black and white students and one Hispanic student. Data on free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility, English learners, and special education enrollment was not available in the records reviewed. The school sits on Mercantile Drive in the 27105 zip code, on the southern side of Winston-Salem.
Winston-Salem itself is a mid-sized North Carolina city that has rebuilt and grown over the past two decades, moving from decades of population loss into new development. The downtown has been reinvented around eight distinct districts, with the Innovation Quarter—a high-profile adaptive-reuse development carved from former R.J. Reynolds tobacco warehouses—serving as an anchor for research, medical, and residential activity. Major employers include Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and Novant Health, along with large institutional presence from Wake Forest University, Reynolds American, Hanesbrands, and numerous financial-services operations. The city's housing market shows median home values below the state benchmark and rents that have climbed modestly; the area is affordable relative to national norms.
Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, the district that operates Kingswood, is a large urban system serving nearly nine districts across the county. In 2022, the board postponed three major bond projects due to construction cost inflation, affecting families in attendance areas that had expected new middle and elementary schools. The county commissioners addressed this in 2023 by providing supplemental funding without raising the property tax rate, securing renovations at other schools and signaling a potential future bond in 2028. The district has also moved to a modified academic calendar, starting school in early August rather than waiting for the state's statutory August 15 opening, a change locked in for 2026-27 and meaningful for families planning childcare and summer programs.
For a family considering Kingswood, the core questions are the school's particular program design and mission, which the standardized test results alone do not reveal. An alternative school can be the right fit for a student whose needs or learning style do not match conventional schools, but the fit depends on what the school actually offers and what you are trying to achieve.
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