The top reported proficiency rate is 26% in English language arts. The lowest is 15% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Madison Middle School
Madison Middle School sits in the heart of Boone County, serving grades six through eight as part of Boone County Schools. The town of Madison is a small Appalachian county seat with a coal-mining heritage, a traditional Main Street anchored by the historic courthouse, and a civic life that centers on community gatherings like the annual WV Coal Festival. Publicly reported descriptions note that the town has seen modest population decline in recent years and has been working toward revitalization following the long downturn in the coal industry. Daily life here is car-dependent, and the school at Riverside Drive is integrated into the town rather than sitting on a distant campus.
The student body is small for a middle school, with enrollment distributed fairly evenly across the three grades. The population is almost entirely white, with only a handful of students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. Several data points that parents often look for were not available in the records we received, including free-or-reduced-price lunch status, special-education rates, and English-learner counts. Their absence means we cannot characterize the school's economic demographics or the scope of its special-population services from this data alone.
State testing results from the most recent West Virginia General Summative Assessment paint a sobering picture of academic proficiency. In math, proficiency was low across all three tested grades, with only a small fraction of students reaching proficiency in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. English language arts results were more mixed: sixth-grade proficiency stood notably higher, while seventh and eighth grade fell back to lower levels. Eighth-grade science proficiency was also low. Participation rates were strong across the board, sitting in the mid-nineties, which means the results reflect nearly the full student body rather than a skewed subset. A parent evaluating this school may want to look into what supports and interventions the school is putting in place to address these proficiency levels, particularly in math where results were consistently low.
A small number of students in grades three through five appear in the testing records, but the counts are so small that no meaningful proficiency rate could be calculated. This likely reflects a handful of students placed at the school outside its typical grade range rather than a broader program.
Because Madison Middle serves only middle school grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and the state does not assess kindergarten through second grade at this school. No advanced coursework, career-pathway, or dual-credit offerings were listed in the data we received, so we cannot speak to program breadth beyond the standard middle school curriculum. Information on discipline, staffing ratios, attendance, and Title I status was also absent from the available records.
Housing in the school's zip code is very affordable compared with both state and national benchmarks, with typical home values well below the statewide figure and far below the national one. The price-to-income ratio sits near the national midpoint, and a modest estimated monthly mortgage suggests that homeownership is within reach for many local families relative to broader markets. No rental data was available for this area.
Boone County Schools, the parent district, did not surface any recently reported strategic changes or initiatives in the records we reviewed, so we left that space empty rather than guess. Madison Middle is a conventional public middle school serving a tight-knit, rural Appalachian community where housing is inexpensive and civic identity runs deep. The academic data, though, shows a school where most students are not yet reaching proficiency on state assessments, and a family considering this school would be well served by asking directly what the school and district are doing to strengthen instruction and support student growth.
See more original research from School Decision →