Summary:
Zip code 35490 is home to just one elementary school, Vance Elementary School, a public school in the Tuscaloosa County district serving grades PK through 5 with 451 students.
Vance Elementary is a school of contrasts. Its biggest strength is science, where 4th-grade proficiency (46.27%) actually beats the district average (42.53%) and comes close to the state average (50.23%). The school also shows a clear upward trend in English as students advance, with 5th-grade proficiency (67.16%) nearly matching the state average (69.53%) and exceeding the district average (66.85%). However, math is a significant challenge, with proficiency rates running 10-20 percentage points below state averages across all grades. Most concerning is a sharp drop in 3rd-grade math proficiency, falling from 28.74% in 2024-2025 to just 16.22% in 2025-2026—a 12.5-point decline in one year that warrants attention. The school's statewide percentile rank reflects this mixed performance, sitting at the 29th percentile after fluctuating between 24th and 31st over the past three years.
On the operational side, Vance shows some encouraging signs. Despite 51.66% of students qualifying for free/reduced lunch, the chronic absenteeism rate is just 9.6%—better than both the district (11.8%) and state (12.0%) averages, suggesting strong family engagement. The student-teacher ratio is a reasonable 14.9, and per-student spending is $8,576. For parents, this is a school that appears to be working hard, with clear strengths in science and upper-grade literacy, but it needs targeted support in mathematics, especially in the early grades. The low absenteeism and improving English scores provide a solid foundation, but the math decline is a red flag that should be monitored closely.
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