The top reported proficiency rate is 52% in Math. The lowest is 32% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Belle Elementary School
Belle Elementary School sits along the Kanawha River in the small town of Belle, a community shaped by its industrial chemical heritage. The town's identity has long been tied to facilities like the DuPont Belle Works and the Optima Chemical plant, and residential streets sit beside this industrial base. Publicly reported sources describe a close-knit community with a gym, a weight room, and events like the Thursday Night Music Fest. The town has no identified public library or transit system. Belle has experienced a steady population decline over recent decades, and no major new housing developments surfaced in available sources. Home values here run well below both the state and national benchmarks, and recent data shows a modest year-over-year decline, so families considering Belle are looking at an affordable but contracting housing market rather than a growing one.
The school serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and operates as a regular public school within Kanawha County Schools. Enrollment is modest for its grade band, with class sizes distributed fairly evenly across the grades. The student body is predominantly white, with a small share of Black students and a handful of students identified as two or more races or American Indian and Alaska Native. Free-or-reduced-price lunch data, special education enrollment, and English learner counts were all missing from the available data, so it is hard to assess the economic and support needs of the student population from the figures alone. A parent may want to ask the school directly about these indicators.
State testing covers grades three through five on the West Virginia General Summative Assessment, and participation was full across every tested grade and subject. In math, third graders posted a strong proficiency rate, with a clear majority scoring proficient or above. That number drops in fourth and fifth grade, where fewer than half of students reached proficiency. English language arts results were steadier, hovering around the midpoint across all three tested grades, with roughly half of students proficient or above each year. Science, tested only in fifth grade, was the weakest area, with only about a third of students reaching proficiency. A parent weighing this school may want to look into the dip in math performance between third and fifth grade and the low science result with the school, to understand what supports or interventions are in place.
No multi-year trend data was available, so there is no way to tell from the figures whether these results are improving, holding, or slipping over time. Grades six through eight show no results, which is expected since the school does not serve those grades.
Information on academic programs, course access, staffing levels, discipline practices, attendance, Title I status, and school environment was absent from the available data. The parent district, Kanawha County Schools, returned no parent-relevant changes meeting a lasting-impact threshold, so there is little to report on recent district-level shifts in curriculum, facilities, or governance that would affect this school.
What the picture does show is a small community elementary school with solid third-grade math performance, middling reading results, and a science result that stands out as a soft spot. The setting is a river town with an industrial backbone, affordable housing, and a shrinking population. For a family already rooted in Belle or drawn by the low cost of living, the school offers a compact pre-K-through-fifth pathway with full participation in state testing and reasonably consistent reading outcomes. The gaps in available data, particularly around economic disadvantage and student support services, are worth filling through direct conversation with the school before making a judgment about fit.
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