The top reported proficiency rate is 42% in English language arts. The lowest is 14% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Pt. Pleasant Intermediate
Pt. Pleasant Intermediate sits on Walden Roush Way in Point Pleasant, a small river-town county seat at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers in Mason County, West Virginia. The school serves grades three through six and operates as a regular public school within Mason County Schools. Point Pleasant mixes residential neighborhoods with a historic downtown commercial district, industrial employment from two local chemical and plastics plants, a regional hospital, and a modest but growing tourism sector tied to the Mothman legend, complete with a museum, statue, and annual festival. The town's population has declined steadily since its mid-twentieth-century peak, reaching its lowest totals in decades. Schools and civic institutions are woven into the town fabric rather than set apart on separate campuses, and the county board of education itself occupies the historic Langston School building, one of the oldest Black schoolhouses still standing in West Virginia.
The school's enrollment is modest for its grade band, with roughly four grade-level cohorts. Its student body is overwhelmingly white, with small representation from Black, Hispanic, and multiracial students. Free-or-reduced-price lunch data was not available, and information on students with disabilities and English learners was also missing, so the picture of student need is incomplete from what we have. A parent wanting to understand the economic and support profile of the enrollment would want to ask the school directly.
State assessment results from the most recent year show a mixed academic picture. In English language arts, proficiency is moderate and uneven across grades, with fourth grade the strongest cohort and fifth grade the weakest. Math proficiency starts at a middling level in third grade, declines through fifth, and ticks back up somewhat in sixth. Science, tested only in fifth grade, is low. Participation rates are essentially full across every tested grade, which means the results reflect nearly all enrolled students. No multi-year trend was available, so there is no way to read whether these levels are improving, slipping, or holding steady. A parent comparing this school to others in the area would want to look into how the district supports instruction across the upper elementary transition, particularly in fifth grade where both math and English results dip. The grade-seven and grade-eight rows in the data are absent because the school does not serve those grades, so there is nothing missing in the sense of an unreported result.
Because Pt. Pleasant Intermediate stops at sixth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. No Advanced Placement, career pathway, dual-credit, or specialized program data was provided, which is expected for an upper-elementary and intermediate grade band. Information on staffing ratios, course access beyond core subjects, discipline, and attendance was not available in the data we received, so we left those out rather than fill them in.
The housing market around the school is affordable relative to both state and national benchmarks. Typical home values in the school's zip code sit well below the West Virginia state average and far below national figures. The price-to-income ratio is low, meaning a family earning the national median income would face a light mortgage burden buying at local prices. No rental data was available, so the rent picture is a gap. The broader economic context includes a thirty-year mortgage rate that has been drifting in the mid-six-percent range and a national unemployment rate that has held steady at a low level.
At the district level, Mason County voters overwhelmingly approved the renewal of an excess levy in November 2024. The levy generates a substantial annual sum for teacher salaries, technology, extracurricular activities, transportation for extracurriculars, extra-duty pay, and operations and maintenance. It continues an existing tax rate rather than adding a new one, and its passage locks in funding for these areas for the foreseeable future. For a family considering this school, that levy renewal means the district has a stable revenue stream supporting the day-to-day and enrichment sides of its program, which is a concrete plus in a county where the tax base is modest and the population has been shrinking.
Point Pleasant itself is a compact town with a National Register historic district, a riverfront state park at Tu-Endie-Wei, and a restored downtown hotel anchoring Main Street. The Silver Memorial Bridge rerouted U.S. Route 33 traffic away from downtown decades ago, which reduced through-traffic street life, but the core remains walkable around the riverfront and courthouse. For a family drawn to a small river town with history, affordability, and a close-knit school setting, Pt. Pleasant Intermediate is the upper-elementary piece of that community, with steady community backing through the levy and assessment results that suggest solid participation but uneven academic performance worth asking about.
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