Nottoway Middle

Nottoway Middle serves 269 students in grades 7–8 in Crewe, VA, a small town in rural Southside Virginia, as part of Nottoway County Public Schools. The school has fallen to the 5th percentile of Virginia middle schools in 2025-26 — its lowest ranking in more than a decade — with proficiency rates far below state averages in nearly every subject. Grade-level math is the most urgent concern: just 12.8% of 7th graders and 15.4% of 8th graders scored proficient on Virginia's math SOL tests, versus state averages of roughly 51% and 47%.

What makes these numbers especially striking is a "math cliff" between 6th and 7th grade. At Nottoway Intermediate, located next door, 6th-grade math proficiency reached 60% in 2025-26, near the state average. But by 7th grade at Nottoway Middle, proficiency drops to 12.8% — a roughly 47-point collapse. Nearby Amelia County Middle and Lunenburg Middle post 8th-grade math proficiency of 65.8% and 46.3%, respectively, even though Lunenburg serves a very similar high-poverty population (92.7% free/reduced-price lunch). Reading at Nottoway Middle sits around 50%, roughly 15–17 points behind those same peer schools.

There are a few positives. Chronic absenteeism has dropped dramatically, from 49.5% in 2020-21 to 16.5% in 2024-25, bringing the school below the district average and close to the state's 14.8%. Class sizes are also small, with a 10.6 student-teacher ratio, and per-student spending has risen each year to $10,582. Historically, students in Algebra I performed at or above state levels, although that strength slipped to 66.2% in 2025-26. Still, the school's overall rankings for student subgroups — including low-income students, who make up nearly 99% of the enrollment — fall in the bottom few percentiles of Virginia middle schools, a decline that suggests poverty alone does not explain the scale of the challenges.