The top reported proficiency rate is 32% in Math. The lowest is 20% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Rosenwald Elementary
Rosenwald Elementary serves children in prekindergarten through fourth grade in Fairmont, a small rural town in southern Robeson County. The school enrolls a small student population drawn from a tri-racial community of African American, Native American, and white residents. The composition of the school reflects the town: a substantial share of students are Black, a significant share are Native American, and smaller shares are white, Hispanic, and multiracial. Nearly all students—an overwhelming majority—qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, anchoring the school in a low-income community.
Fairmont itself is a place shaped by decline and modest reinvestment. The town's identity grew from tobacco; it was once marketed as the "Biggest Little Tobacco Market In the World" by the late 1940s, but as tobacco farming receded, local growers shifted to corn, soybeans, and wheat. The population has contracted over recent decades, and civic life centers on a compact, historic Main Street downtown listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town is designated a Small-Town Main Street Community, though one account notes it is "not the busy little town it used to be." Manufacturing operations like Harger Lightning & Grounding and Atlantic Building Components have brought some new jobs to the area in recent years. The school sits in proximity to downtown and is part of a three-school cluster—Rosenwald Elementary, Fairmont Middle, and Fairmont High—anchoring the town's civic geography.
On state testing in reading and math for grades three through four, Rosenwald's proficiency rates are low. In English language arts, proficiency was in the low range. In math, proficiency was roughly a third of students. These results reflect broader struggles in the school's student population and the resource constraints of the district. State assessment data for earlier grades is not available because North Carolina does not test children in pre-K through grade two. No multi-year trend data was available to show whether performance is shifting.
The district serving Rosenwald—Public Schools of Robeson County—operates under real financial pressure. It ranks last in North Carolina for local per-student spending and the county lacks a significant tax base. In 2025, the district lost a substantial amount in pandemic-era federal funding that had been earmarked for major facility upgrades including HVAC replacement, classroom additions, and window repairs at elementary schools. The district had to redirect its own funds to cover contractors already at work, leaving improvements unfunded. These constraints matter for families evaluating whether this school has the physical infrastructure and resources its students need.
On the positive side, the district has made deliberate choices about how children are taught to read. At the elementary level, including at Rosenwald, the district has adopted Science of Reading–aligned curriculum using EL Education for literacy instruction and Eureka Math Squared for math, paired with LETRS training for teachers. This structured literacy approach is grounded in current research and represents a pedagogical commitment across the elementary system.
The district is also building toward broader opportunity. A new Robeson Career and Technical Education Center is opening in nearby Pembroke in August 2025, replacing an older facility and adding programs in drone technology, culinary arts, mechatronics, welding, EMT, and computer and network engineering, along with a rebuilt planetarium and science center. This is the district's first major new facility in over two decades and will create a county-wide career and technical pathway families should consider as their children progress through middle and high school.
Rosenwald is a school for early elementary grades in a low-income, tri-racial rural community. Its test results show struggling proficiency levels and families may want to look into further detail with the school about how it supports readers and mathematicians who are not yet proficient. The broader district context—constrained resources paired with intentional curriculum work and incoming CTE investment—shapes the educational environment and opportunity arc available to students who stay within the system.
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