Summary:
ZIP code 43162 in West Jefferson, Ohio, is served by a single middle school: West Jefferson Middle School, a grades 6–8 campus with 252 students in the Jefferson Local district. Because it is the only middle-level school in the area, there is no in-ZIP peer to compare against — the meaningful benchmarks are its own district, the state of Ohio, and its own recent history.
The school's clearest strength is math. Eighth grade math proficiency is 78.6% against a 52.0% Ohio rate — a 26.6-point advantage — and it rose 12.4 points from the prior year. Algebra I reached 100% proficiency in both 2024-25 and 2025-26, far above the state's 61.6%, and across grades 6–8 math averages roughly nine points above Ohio. Those results suggest strong 8th grade preparation feeding directly into Algebra I success. English language arts is a different story: the three tested ELA grades average about three points below the state.
Two items deserve watching. Seventh grade is the volatility point — ELA 7 fell 15.8 points to 52.1% (state: 62.7%) and Math 7 fell 13.3 points to the identical 52.1%, a synchronized, cross-subject drop that looks more like a cohort issue than a curriculum one, and 22.8% of students are chronically absent. Science 8 is quietly the largest shortfall, at 49.4% against 61.2% statewide, down 12.2 points. The school has held 3 stars and roughly 52nd–59th percentile for three years, above its district's 2-star, 45th-percentile rating. Free/reduced-lunch data is not reported, and per-student spending figures date to 2018-19, so socioeconomic and resourcing conclusions cannot be drawn.
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