Summary
Maury River Middle is a grades 6–8 school in Lexington, Virginia, serving 481 students in the Rockbridge County Public Schools district. For the 2025–2026 school year, the school earned a 3-star rating and ranked 188th out of 416 Virginia middle schools, placing it in the 55th percentile statewide — a meaningful climb from its 2016–2017 ranking of 325th (22nd percentile). This steady upward trajectory, from 1 star to 3 stars over the past decade, suggests that schoolwide improvements are taking hold.
The school's progress is especially notable given that about 75% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Chronic absenteeism has fallen from 30% in 2021–2022 to just 9.9% in 2024–2025 — now better than both the district and state averages. Academically, the headline is 7th-grade math, which jumped from 38.1% proficiency to 58.99%, lifting the school above the state average. Eighth-grade Algebra I proficiency is excellent at 97.96%, and the school also exceeds state averages in 8th-grade math, geography, civics, and 7th- and 8th-grade reading. Low-income students, in particular, rank in the 59th percentile, above the school's overall standing.
Compared with nearby schools, Maury River sits between two very different neighbors. Lylburn Downing Middle, just under a mile away, is a 5-star school in the 98th percentile — but it serves a far less economically disadvantaged population (31% free/reduced lunch) and actually has higher chronic absenteeism at 22.5%. By contrast, Parry McCluer Middle in Buena Vista achieves a 79th-percentile ranking despite an even higher poverty rate (90.5%), showing what's possible with similar challenges. The biggest opportunities for Maury River are Earth Science (81.56% vs. 90.67% statewide) and 6th-grade reading, which remains slightly below the state average.
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