Tiger pride fills Ragsdale High School

Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro on September 28, 2026

By: Cindy Farmer

According to the principal Noel Keener, “You come in the door and people are friendly. Especially the students and the staff.”

From the band playing in the hallway, to the classroom. Everywhere you go at Ragsdale High School there’s Tiger pride. Where students, teachers, administrators, and parents are all working together for more learning, more accomplishment, and more success.

Says Keener, “We take students where they are, and we figure out how to get to that next step. We take where we are with what it is we do, and we figure out how to get to that next step. And so, I think that forward motion, it’s what’s really important. And I think nowadays, I mean, when is the next time our students are going to have 1500 people that have their back, right? You know, people go to, you know, smaller schools after they leave high school. They might work, a career where they mostly work alone or maybe work from home. But this is a full sense of 1300 students and 150 staff members that are all in here together, you know, with the same vision, with the same mission. And so, I think that really helps us bring us together.”

And that togetherness is getting them somewhere. This year, Ragsdale High School was the most improved school in Guilford County and named the winner of the esteemed Hupert B Humphrey award.

“So our staff is very proud, because not only did we increase our proficiency, not only did we exceed growth, but we went up a letter grade. It’s the first time we’ve exceeded growth since 2017. And it’s the first time that we have been considered to be a B school and not a C school since 2019,” Keener says.

And that’s just the start. The school saw big growth in biology, math, and English. The number of career credentials attempted and earned doubled. And while the school’s academics improved, so did something else. The students’ buy-in. Ragsdale ranked among the highest scores for students’ sense of belonging and student teacher relationships.

“That’s just a testament, to who our students are, how our students are supported by their families as well as what our educators are doing in the classrooms,” says Keener. “We, you know, my job is to support my teachers because they have the toughest job in the building. And so that really shows that the staff is on the same page working together, for the benefit of our students. And I just think that all the work that they’re doing and planning and making sure that what they give students is the correct information and making sure our students get it and helping them get where they need to go.”

Because every student needs to feel seen and heard in order to succeed.

“We treat all of our students with care. We show them that we love them. We let them know when they make mistakes, we pick them up, when we make mistakes, guess what? They pick us up to. And so that’s the great part about this sense of community that we’re there for each other and the good times. And when times get tough, too,” she says.

The school adopted the motto all-in. Because Keener says they want to give student multiple well-rounded opportunities that include many academic options but also many extra-curricular options.

Says Keener, “We believe in public school, and what we want is for all students in our zone to come to our school. We want them to experience what we have here. I mean, we have we have dances, in the fall, we have pep rallies, we have student sections, we have clubs, we have all those things that you think of when you say high school. And we think we have great experiences for students.”

Both inside the classroom and out, that Tiger pride is showing.