The recent news that the Public Schools of Robeson County, after wiggling off that hook for a single year, was back on the state’s low-performing list was disappointing, but don’t count us among the surprised.

Superintendent Shanita Wooten wasn’t making any excuses, nor was she entertaining any.

“This goes back to all of us, me, the board and down the line,” Wooten said. “We’re really going to focus on practical help, hands-on help.”

The obvious excuse for Wooten, administrators, teachers, staff, parents and students was the loss of 18 days of school — about one month — during and after Hurricane Florence. The state requires 185 instruction days, so almost one in 10 was lost — and that, folks, is debilitating.

Of all the news in the report, what we found most distressing was the F that was assigned to Southside-Ashpole Elementary School, which just concluded its first year as the lone school in the state’s Innovative School District, which the state created in an effort to lift performance at chronically low-performing schools. School officials said there were some improvements, but conceded they were minimal, and all that will be remembered is the F.

Southside-Ashpole is managed by a private entity, which enjoys autonomy unlike other schools in the local system, and we convinced ourselves that freedom and a renewed energy would enhance learning at the Rowland school. But what we learned was just how difficult it is to turn around a school that has been adrift as long as Southside-Ashpole.

There was some good news in the report, with three schools, East Robeson Elementary; Southeastern Academy, which is a charter school; and the Early College High School at Robeson Community College each earning an A. The Early College continues to be one of the local system’s gems, and we implore the Board of Education to look for way to make room for additional students. We know that attendance at RCC is going down, the likely result of a strong economy, so would that not free up some room?

School closures and consolidation were offered as excuses for the sorry report card, but we aren’t buying them. Both occurred toward the end of the school year, and although there was plenty of turbulence during the process, we believe the local system’s fate had essentially been sealed by then.

2018-19 was certainly a transitional year for the local schools, but our hope is that the system has been teed up high for a brighter future. The school board, after several false starts, finally got some traction on the hard work of closing some schools and consolidating others. There is more work to be done there, but the system appears to have extricated itself from budget woes, so the pressure is off, and energy can be redirected on learning.

Administrators can get back to the business of educating, without the worry of a check bouncing.

Most importantly, for the first time in perhaps ever, the system isn’t leaning hard on substitute teachers, and we are told there is a certified teacher in every classroom, though the certification and the subject don’t always align. This is the silver lining that a reduction in student population has provided.

So with all those distractions in the rear-view mirror, the direction forward is clear. And it’s up.