Summary:
Zip code 38068, located in Somerville, Tennessee, is served by one middle school: East Junior High School, which enrolls 243 students in grades 6 through 8 as part of Fayette County Schools. The school has shown significant improvement over the past two years, climbing from the 8th percentile statewide in 2023-24 to the 27th percentile in 2025-26, a jump of roughly 100 places in the state ranking despite its district ranking in the bottom 1% of Tennessee districts.
East Junior High School outperforms its district in every subject, with social studies as the strongest subject at 40.4% proficiency, followed by science at 30.5%, ELA at 23.8%, and math at 23.0%. While these numbers exceed district averages by as much as 9.7 points, they remain well below state averages, particularly in math and ELA. The school's most alarming issue is chronic absenteeism, as 40.9% of students are chronically absent, more than double the state average of 18.3% and nearly double the district rate of 22.9%.
One of the most striking patterns is the performance of the 7th-grade cohort, which outperforms both 6th and 8th graders across all subjects, nearly matching the state average in math. The school also shows promise in Algebra I, with 27.3% proficiency in 2024-25, nearly matching the state average. With per-student spending of $13,701, the school has resources to work with, but the high absenteeism rate and small enrollment of roughly 80 students per grade suggest year-to-year swings should be interpreted with caution. The school appears to be moving in the right direction but still has significant work to reach state proficiency benchmarks.
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