The top reported proficiency rate is 39% in English language arts. The lowest is 28% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Davis Thomas Elementary Middle School
Davis Thomas Elementary Middle School sits in Thomas, a small former coal town in Tucker County that has remade itself as an arts and outdoor recreation destination. The town's compact downtown along Front Street holds galleries, live music venues, and restaurants, and the Blackwater Canyon Rail Trail begins at the edge of town, dropping into a canyon of waterfalls and old coke ovens. Blackwater Falls and Canaan Valley State Parks are minutes away, and the Monongahela National Forest surrounds the area. Publicly reported sources describe a place that has been revitalizing through small-scale tourism and arts investment rather than large housing developments, after decades of population decline following the closure of the last coal mine. Housing here is affordable relative to both state and national benchmarks, with the typical home value sitting well below the national figure. The cost of living runs below the national average, though the unemployment rate is high and local employment options are limited.
The school serves pre-kindergarten through eighth grade and is part of Tucker County Schools. Its enrollment is small for a school spanning that many grades, with each grade band holding roughly a couple of dozen students or fewer. The student body is almost entirely white, with a handful of students identifying as Hispanic or two or more races. Data on free and reduced-price lunch, special education, and English learner populations was not available, so those dimensions of the school's student support picture are missing here. A parent may want to ask the school directly about those services.
State assessment results from the most recent year are available and show a mixed academic picture. In English language arts, proficiency rates climb as students move through the grades, with the upper elementary and middle grades generally performing better than the earliest tested grades. The eighth grade stands out as the strongest ELA result, with a majority of tested students reaching proficiency. Math tells a different story. Third and fourth grade math proficiency sits in a moderate range, but the numbers drop sharply in sixth grade and remain low through eighth grade. The sixth grade math result is particularly low. Science results, tested only in fifth and eighth grades, land in a moderate range. Full participation was achieved across every tested grade and subject, which is a positive signal that the school is reaching all its students for state accountability purposes. Because the tested groups are small, year-to-year results can swing based on just a few students, so a single year's numbers warrant context. Trend data was not available beyond the current year, so there is no multi-year pattern to assess whether these results are improving or declining.
Tucker County Schools has made several investments that bear on this school's environment. The district adopted a new English Language Arts curriculum for elementary and middle school grades, aligned with state college- and career-readiness standards, which directly affects instruction at Davis Thomas. Voters renewed the district's excess levy, which provides roughly a quarter of the district budget and funds teaching positions, extracurricular programs, technology, and transportation. At the high school level, the district expanded career and technical education pathways in welding, health sciences, and information technology, though those programs would come into play for students after they leave Davis Thomas.
Information on staffing ratios, course access, discipline, attendance, and Title I status was not available. The locale classification was not provided. No neighbor comparison data was included to position this school against others in the county.
What a family finds here is a small, rural pre-K-through-eight school in a town with a distinct cultural identity shaped by arts, music, and access to public lands. The academic results are uneven, with reading holding up better than math, particularly in the middle grades where math proficiency falls to low levels. Families considering this school would do well to ask about math support and intervention in the upper grades, and to seek out the missing information on student demographics and services that the available data does not cover.
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