Parkway Elementary

Parkway Elementary is a pre-K–5 school in Virginia Beach, VA, serving 465 students as part of Virginia Beach City Public Schools. The school serves a very high-poverty population — about 85% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, a rate roughly double that of nearby schools like Salem Elementary, Rosemont Forest Elementary, and Indian Lakes Elementary. Parkway currently ranks in the 28th percentile of Virginia elementary schools (804th out of 1,111), earning a 1-star rating, which places it well below the district average and most of its immediate neighbors.

Academically, Parkway trails the average of 10 nearby elementary schools in nearly every subject. In 4th grade, for example, math proficiency is 55.9% versus a 73.9% nearby average, and reading is 64.3% versus 76.2%. The school is not under-resourced — it spends roughly $18,900 per student and has an 11.5:1 student-teacher ratio, both more favorable than higher-performing neighbors like Salem and Glenwood Elementary. One genuine bright spot is attendance: chronic absenteeism has fallen from 21.4% to 9.6% over four years and is now better than both the district and state averages.

Parkway also has notable pockets of success. Hispanic students rank at the 75th percentile statewide — a 4-star result — and low-income students have shown steady improvement over the past three years. However, military-connected students rank at just the 4th percentile, a significant concern in a community with a large military presence. Test scores also swing sharply from year to year, suggesting that academic support may be inconsistent across grade levels. The experience of Rosemont Elementary, which has similar poverty (76.5%) and spending but ranks at the 53rd percentile, suggests that Parkway has room to improve its instructional effectiveness even with its current student population.