Fort Gay Pre K-8, Fort Gay WV - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Fort Gay Pre K-8

Fort Gay Pre K-8 sits on Viking Drive in the town of Fort Gay, a small river community at the junction of the Tug Fork and Big Sandy rivers, directly across from Louisa, Kentucky. The town is part of the Huntington-Ashland metropolitan area, though it retains a distinctly rural, small-town character. Publicly reported sources describe a population in decline, with limited commercial infrastructure and most employed residents commuting elsewhere for work. The Norfolk Southern Railway's Kenova District runs along the western edge of town. Civic life centers on the town hall on Wayne Street, with many residents likely relying on nearby Louisa or the broader Wayne County area for shopping and services. Housing in the surrounding zip code is quite affordable compared with state and national benchmarks, with typical home values well below the West Virginia state level and far below the national figure. Rent data was not available for this area.

The school serves pre-kindergarten through eighth grade with an enrollment of roughly five hundred students, fairly evenly distributed across grade levels. The student body is nearly entirely white, with only a handful of students identifying as Black, Hispanic, or multiracial. Data on free or reduced-price lunch eligibility, special education enrollment, and English learner status was not available in the provided records, so it is not possible to characterize those dimensions here. The school operates as a regular public school within Wayne County Schools, which is the parent district. We looked for recent district-level changes that might affect families and found little of lasting impact reported, so we left that out rather than guess.

State assessment results from the most recent school year show a mixed and grade-dependent picture. In math, proficiency ranges widely across grades. Fifth grade stands out as a clear bright spot, with a majority of students reaching proficiency. Fourth grade also performs relatively well. By contrast, sixth grade and eighth grade math proficiency falls to much lower levels, and third grade sits below that again. The pattern is similar in English language arts. Sixth grade is the strongest in ELA, with nearly half of tested students proficient, followed by fifth grade. Third grade ELA proficiency is notably low, and eighth grade is also weak. Science, tested only in fifth and eighth grades, shows modest proficiency in fifth grade and drops sharply by eighth grade.

Participation rates were at or near full enrollment across all tested grades and subjects, which means these results reflect nearly the entire student population rather than a selective subset. Average scale scores were not available, so a finer-grained view of where students cluster within or below proficiency is not possible. Multi-year trend data was not available either, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement, decline, or stability relative to prior years.

Taken together, the academic profile suggests a school where upper elementary grades, particularly fourth and fifth, are producing stronger outcomes, while the middle grades, especially seventh and eighth, show results that fall off considerably. A parent considering this school for a younger child might want to look into how the school supports students through the transition into later grades and what interventions or staffing models are in place for sixth through eighth grade. The data available here does not include staffing ratios, course access, discipline, or attendance information, so those practical questions about the school environment remain open. Title I status was also not reported, though many schools serving communities with similar economic profiles participate in that program.

This is a small community school in an affordable, rural river town, serving a mostly homogeneous student population. Its academic results are uneven across grade bands, with genuine strengths in the upper elementary years and softer outcomes in the middle grades.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 322%

School 22% · District 47% · ▼ 25 pts below district

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 19 pts below county median

Grade 443%

School 43% · District 55% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median

Grade 559%

School 59% · District 44% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median

Grade 618%

School 18% · District 32% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median

Grade 728%

School 28% · District 30% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median

Grade 813%

School 13% · District 30% · ▼ 17 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 312%

School 12% · District 40% · ▼ 28 pts below district

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

Grade 438%

School 38% · District 53% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median

Grade 539%

School 39% · District 49% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median

Grade 649%

School 49% · District 49%

▲ 4 pts above state median

Grade 728%

School 28% · District 45% · ▼ 17 pts below district

▼ 15 pts below state median

Grade 820%

School 20% · District 42% · ▼ 22 pts below district

▼ 21 pts below state median

Science

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 36% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median

Grade 813%

School 13% · District 28% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median

This schoolWAYNE COUNTY SCHOOLS, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.