Summary:
Franklin City Public Schools is served by just one elementary school, S.P. Morton Elementary, which enrolls 620 students in grades PK–6 in Franklin, VA, a small city where the district as a whole currently ranks last among 131 Virginia districts. Because this is the only elementary school, its results are identical to the district’s elementary-level performance, and the school sits in the bottom 1% of all Virginia elementary schools, holding a 0-star rating and a 0th percentile rank for 2025–2026.
S.P. Morton Elementary faces substantial academic challenges, with every subject and grade level scoring far below state averages. For example, 4th grade math proficiency is just 21.9% compared to 73.3% statewide, and 5th grade math is 23.9% versus 72.4%. The school’s relative strength is reading, where average proficiency across grades 3–6 is 37.6%, compared to 28.3% in math—but both remain critically low. There are some encouraging year-over-year changes: 3rd grade math jumped from 17.5% to 40.9% and 6th grade reading improved from 34.3% to 44.4%. However, 5th grade reading dropped by about 10 points, and 4th grade VA Studies fell sharply from 48.7% to 24.7%, showing that progress is uneven and not yet a clear trend.
A major risk factor is chronic absenteeism, which affects 24.7% of students—about 10 points higher than the state average of 14.8%. The school also serves an extremely high-poverty population, with a free/reduced lunch rate reported at 101.45%, meaning essentially all students qualify for economic support. Per-student spending is $10,602 and the student–teacher ratio is 15.5:1, indicating that funding and staffing alone have not closed the achievement gaps. For parents considering this school, the bottom line is that S.P. Morton Elementary is a high-need school with persistent, wide gaps in proficiency, but recent gains in 3rd grade math and 6th grade reading offer a small sign of possible momentum if attendance and targeted instruction improve.
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