Best High Schools in Zip Code 23086

Zip code 23086, covering the King William, Virginia area, is home to a single high school: King William High, which serves grades 9–12 and enrolls 685 students in the King William County Public Schools district. Because this is the only high school in the zip code, the area's secondary education profile is defined entirely by this one school's performance, making its results particularly important for local families.

King William High shows clear strengths in student persistence: the 2024–2025 graduation rate was 93.7%, above the state average of 92.3%, and the dropout rate was 4.5%, below the state's 5.0%. The school also maintains a favorable student-to-teacher ratio of 13.9:1 and spent roughly $8,940 per pupil in 2023–2024. Academic proficiency, however, is a mixed picture. In 2025–2026, the school beat the state average in 12th-grade VA & US History (66.67% vs. 54.32%) and 9th-grade World History I (76.51% vs. 72.24%), but fell more than 10 points below state averages in six SOL subjects, including 12th-grade Writing (36.67% vs. 64.97%), 9th-grade Algebra II (70.37% vs. 94.43%), and 10th-grade Algebra I (51.85% vs. 69.95%). State ranking has also slipped, from the 31st percentile in 2024–2025 to the 18th percentile in 2025–2026.

One concern is chronic absenteeism: 16.6% of students were chronically absent in 2024–2025, higher than both the district's 12.1% and the state's 14.8%. With 41.31% of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, the school serves a substantial economically disadvantaged population, yet its graduation and dropout rates show students are still finishing high school at strong rates. The biggest takeaway for parents is that King William High excels at keeping students on track to graduate, but struggles with standardized test proficiency, especially in math and writing. Achievement varies widely by grade and subject, and year-to-year swings are large, so families should look at multiple years of data when evaluating the school. Targeted support in math, writing, and attendance would likely help the school reverse its recent ranking decline.