Only one Fayette County public school received a “very low” performance rating on annual state test scores for the 2025-26 year.
Additionally, for the first time ever, the district no longer has any schools federally designated for being among the lowest performing 5% in the state.
Those points are among the takeaways from 2025-26 test score data released by the Kentucky Department of Education Thursday.
“This is very strong data, and while it identifies areas where we can continue to be better … this is phenomenal for Fayette County Public Schools,” Fayette County Public Schools Interim Superintendent Bill Bradford said at a news briefing Wednesday in the John D. Price administration building. ”We have closed multiple achievement gaps, we’ve increased overall rates of proficiency and we have led our students to high levels of readiness for post-secondary (education).”
Booker T. Washington Elementary was the lone FCPS institution that scored “very low” on the annual state report card — that’s down from two schools last year and five in the 2023-24 school year. Both schools ranked “very low” in the last assessment improved their rating this year.
Bradford credits that and the overall district performance, largely, to classroom teachers.
“Let it be clear, our teachers are certainly the reason why our students are performing to the level which they are. … Our teachers are truly engaging students to the degree by which they are mastering grade-level standards at a higher rate,” he said, noting the district looks to partner high-performing educators with students that have “critical needs.”
The Kentucky Summative Assessment, released each fall, analyses student performance on reading, math, social studies, science and writing at various grade levels.
Of note in this year’s release, for the first time since FCPS has tracked the data, none of its schools performed among the lowest 5% in the state, one of the triggers for a school to be federally designated as CSI, or Comprehensive Support and Improvement.
The KDE data comes as FCPS is under intense public scrutiny following a budget crisis. Bradford said Wednesday that while FCPS officials look to trim the budget following massive deficits in recent years and depleted fund balance, they will use data to inform the curriculum budget and choices in the classroom.
“We make decisions with a long-term commitment so we can have consistency and continuity with our instructional programming, but we also have to be nimble,” he said.
FCPS 2025-26 performance testing scores
At a glance, FCPS elementary and high schools saw general improvement in test scores for the 2025-26 school year, the data indicates. Middle schools largely remained consistent, Bradford said.
Average performance for the district’s elementary and high schools fell in the high range for the state, at 71.1 and 71.8, respectively, while middle schools performed in the medium range at 63. That’s a drop from last year, when FCPS middle schools fell in the state’s high range at 65.2.
Overall, FCPS boosted the number of “very high” performing schools from 12 last year to 14 for the current assessment year.
The top-performing schools in the district include:
- Ashland Elementary School
- Athens-Chilesburg Elementary School
- Cassidy Elementary School
- Clays Mill Elementary School
- Garrett Morgan Elementary School
- Maxwell Elementary School
- Meadowthorpe Elementary School
- Rosa Parks Elementary School
- SCAPA Elementary students
- Stonewall Elementary School
- Wellington Elementary School
- Edythe J. Hayes Middle School
- SCAPA
- Lafayette High School
Those in the low performing category include:
- Arlington Elementary School
- Cardinal Valley Elementary School
- Harrison Elementary School
- Julius Marks Elementary School
- Mary Todd Elementary School
- Northern Elementary School
- Russell Cave Elementary School
- William Wells Brown Elementary School
- Yates Elementary School
- Winburn Middle School
You can search your child's school below to see its ranking on test scores for the 2025-26 school year.
Note: Schools designated ATSI, or Advanced Targeted Support and Improvement, were previously under a federal designation for falling short on performance among a student class (race, special education status, family income, for example) and did not improve enough since the previous designation.
