The top reported proficiency rate is 93% in Social studies. The lowest is 50% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Union Local Elementary School
Union Local Elementary School serves children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in a small, rural district that covers a sprawling area of eastern Ohio hill country. The school is located on a large campus on Belmont Morristown Road, outside the village of Belmont proper, alongside the district's middle and high schools. The enrollment is moderate in size for the grade band, with nearly equal representation across pre-K through fifth grade and a student body that is overwhelmingly white and rural.
The school's state assessment results show mixed performance. In English language arts, about half of tested third through fifth graders scored at proficiency or above. In mathematics, proficiency sits at roughly the same level. Science proficiency is comparable. These results place the school below the midpoint of overall proficiency when compared to other districts in Belmont County. The gap between English language arts and mathematics is small, with reading performing slightly better than computation. A parent may want to look further into what support systems exist for students who are not yet proficient, particularly in math.
About four in ten students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker of economic need that is fairly typical for rural Ohio. The school serves a predominantly residential community with no concentrated downtown; families in the district live spread across several small towns and villages including Centerville, Bethesda, Morristown, Flushing, and others. The village of Belmont itself is a tiny, stable place of roughly a couple hundred residents where neighbors know one another, with a small-town texture but little commercial core. Barkcamp State Park, a recreation area centered on a lake with trails and camping, sits about a mile away and serves as a local anchor for outdoor life.
The housing market in the area is quite affordable, with median home values well below the state and national benchmarks. For families considering a move, this means lower entry costs, but it also reflects an economy that has faced long-term decline. The county was historically rooted in coal and steel, and the village itself lost its railroad in the 1980s; population has been slowly shrinking over recent decades. Jobs in the broader area are tied to services, corrections, and regional ties to the Wheeling metropolitan economy.
The district recently navigated significant funding turbulence. A 2-mill improvement levy failed by a wide margin in November 2025, but a similar 3-mill permanent improvement levy passed narrowly in May 2026 after a decades-long drought without new operating funds. The money will address long-deferred facility repairs to roofs, heating and cooling systems, and plumbing. This newly passed levy signals both the community's hesitation about raising property taxes and, once passed, a real shift in the district's capacity to maintain its buildings. For families moving into the area, this funding history and the recent passage of sustained tax support is worth understanding as a sign of both the district's infrastructure challenges and the effort required to address them.
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