The top reported proficiency rate is 41% in English language arts. The lowest is 7% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Herndon Cons Elementary & Middle School
Herndon Cons Elementary & Middle School sits along Herndon Road in Bud, a tiny rural community in Wyoming County, West Virginia. The school serves pre-kindergarten through eighth grade and belongs to Wyoming County Schools. Its enrollment is small, with only a handful of students in each grade, which gives the place an intimate feel but also means a single class of children can shift the school's overall results from year to year.
The student body is almost entirely white, with only a few children from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. Information on free or reduced-price lunch eligibility was not available, and the school's special-population data, including students with individualized education programs and English learners, was also missing from what we received. Title I status was not reported. These gaps limit the picture of how the school supports its most vulnerable students, and a parent may want to ask the school directly about those services.
State assessment results from the most recent school year come from the West Virginia General Summative Assessment. Because each tested grade has so few students, the proficiency rates swing sharply and should be read with that in mind. In math, results were generally low across the intermediate grades, with only a small fraction of tested students reaching proficiency in fourth and fifth grade. Third and sixth grade landed somewhat higher, and seventh grade stood out as a clear bright spot, with a strong share of students demonstrating mastery. Eighth grade math was suppressed, so no result is available.
Reading and language arts told a steadier story. Proficiency rates across third through seventh grade sat in a moderate range, with seventh grade again the strongest performer. As with math, eighth grade was suppressed. Science was tested only in fifth and eighth grade. The fifth grade science result was very low, with essentially no tested students reaching proficiency, and eighth grade science was suppressed. Participation was full or nearly full across all tested grades and subjects.
There is no multi-year trend available for this school; the data covers only a single point in time, so it is hard to say whether these results represent a dip, a plateau, or something else. No nationally standardized academic context was provided for comparison, and no neighbor comparison set was available to position Herndon against nearby schools. A parent weighing these results should treat them as a snapshot rather than a pattern, and given the small tested groups, a conversation with the school about what instruction looks like day to day would tell more than the scores alone.
Beyond academics, the available data is thin. No information was provided on course offerings, extracurriculars, dual-credit or career pathways, staffing ratios, attendance patterns, or discipline. For a school serving pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, program breadth matters, and a parent would want to ask the school directly what is available in art, music, physical education, counseling, and any intervention or enrichment programming.
The community context is distinctive. Bud is a very small, low-density census-designated place with no incorporated government and no real commercial district. It sits along Barkers Creek and West Virginia Route 10, and the nearest town of any size is Mullens, a short distance to the north. The local economy is extremely small, employing only a handful of people, with construction, public administration, and food services as the main sectors. Housing values are modest. The community has been losing population over recent census cycles, and projections suggest that decline will continue. Publicly reported sources note that Bud was named after a figure in the local logging industry, and the area retains that rural, historically working character.
Wyoming County Schools, the parent district, had no parent-relevant changes that met the threshold for inclusion in the district brief. We searched for recent strategic priorities, facility investments, or academic initiatives and found little that cleared that bar, so we left it out rather than guess.
For a family already rooted in this corner of Wyoming County, Herndon offers a close-knit, small-scale setting where children stay in one building from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. The academic picture is mixed and thin, with some strong upper-grade results and some clear soft spots in the intermediate and elementary tested grades. The lack of program data, special-population data, and trend information means much of the real decision-making will come from a direct conversation with the school rather than from what any data summary can capture.
See more original research from School Decision →