The top reported proficiency rate is 61% in English language arts. The lowest is 41% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Meadows Elementary School
Meadows Elementary School sits on Washington Boulevard in Huntington, a mid-sized river city that has long served as a regional hub for transportation, healthcare, and higher education in southwestern West Virginia. The school is part of Cabell County Schools, the district that spreads elementary, middle, and high schools across the city and surrounding county rather than clustering them in one campus. Huntington itself grew up as the western terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, one of the nation's first planned communities built around rail and river industries. Those industries, coal, chemicals, steel, and oil, largely collapsed after World War II, and the city has been working against decades of population decline ever since. Today the employment base runs more toward Marshall University and its affiliated health network, Cabell Huntington Hospital, CSX Transportation, and government. The Port of Huntington Tri-State, the second-busiest inland port in the country, still anchors a logistics and marine transportation sector.
The school serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, with a total enrollment that is small for an elementary school carrying a PK through 5 band. Its student body is predominantly white, with a smaller group of Black students and students of two or more races, and a very small number of Hispanic and Asian students. Free-or-reduced-price lunch data was not available, so the economic profile of the student body cannot be characterized from what was provided. English learner and special education counts were also missing.
On state testing, Meadows shows a pattern that is common in elementary schools but still worth a parent's attention. The third grade math proficiency rate is strong, with most tested students scoring proficient or above. By fourth grade, that rate dips to a little more than half, and by fifth grade it falls further, with fewer than half of tested students reaching proficiency. English language arts holds more steady across the three tested grades, with a clear majority of students proficient in third and fourth grade and a rate just under that threshold in fifth grade. Science, tested only in fifth grade, came in below the math and ELA rates, with fewer than half of students proficient. Participation was full or near-full across all tested grades. Average scale scores were not reported for any subject or grade, and only one year of data is available, so no trend can be drawn. A parent whose child is entering the upper elementary grades may want to look into how the school supports math instruction from third through fifth grade, given the drop-off the data shows.
No graduation rate applies here, since the school does not serve high school grades. Civil-rights data, discipline reports, course access details, staffing figures, and attendance records were not available, so those dimensions of school life cannot be described. The school's Title I status was not reported. There is no magnet or charter designation; Meadows is a regular public school.
The housing market around the school reflects Huntington's broader economic story. Home values in the school's zip code sit well below both the West Virginia state benchmark and the national benchmark, and rents are similarly modest. The price-to-income ratio is low, meaning a family earning a typical income could buy a home here more easily than in most of the country. Estimated monthly mortgage costs run a bit higher than typical rent, but both are affordable relative to income. Home values and rents have been rising year over year, though from a low base. Huntington's city government has produced a Housing Needs Assessment and a revitalization plan, both publicly reported, signaling an active policy focus on attracting residents and reversing population loss. The broader Huntington-Ashland metropolitan area, which spans parts of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio, provides a larger regional market that partially offsets the city's long-term population decline.
For a family considering this school, the picture is mixed in a way that maps onto the grade levels. Early elementary performance looks solid, especially in third grade math and ELA. The upper grades show softer results, particularly in fifth grade math and science. The setting is an older river city with affordable housing, a university presence, and a downtown that has seen reinvestment efforts, but also a community grappling with decades of economic contraction. The school is small, the peer group is relatively homogeneous, and the data gaps around poverty, special education, discipline, and staffing mean a parent would need to ask the school directly to fill in those parts of the picture.
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