Best Middle Schools in Zip Code 23150

Zip code 23150 contains exactly one middle school, Elko Middle, which serves grades 6 through 8 in Sandston, VA, and enrolls 695 students within the Henrico County Public Schools district. Elko Middle is a high-poverty school, with 89.21% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch, and it consistently ranks in the bottom 5% of Virginia middle schools—placing 401st out of 416 schools statewide in 2025–2026 with a zero-star rating. The district itself is ranked 90th out of 131 Virginia districts, putting it in the 31st percentile.

Elko’s academic profile shows clear areas of concern and a few notable bright spots. Grade-level math proficiency is a major weakness, with only 28–30% of students in grades 6–8 scoring proficient in 2025–2026, compared to state averages of 47–63%. Science is similarly challenging: just 26.95% of 8th graders were proficient in general Science, a nearly 38-point gap from the state average. Reading performance is moderately better, with proficiency rates between 48.71% and 54.46% across grades, though still about 20 points below the Virginia average. However, students in advanced coursework perform much stronger: 86.21% of 7th graders taking Algebra I were proficient, and 8th-grade Earth Science proficiency hit 82.43%, within about 8 points of the district and state. A concerning trend is the sharp drop in 8th-grade Algebra I proficiency from 87.5% in 2024–2025 to 70.69% in 2025–2026, along with a smaller decline in Geometry to 60.53%.

Despite its academic struggles, Elko Middle shows meaningful positives. Chronic absenteeism is just 12.1%, better than both the district (14.1%) and state (14.8%), which is especially noteworthy given the school’s high poverty rate. The school also spends $13,072 per student with a favorable student-teacher ratio of 12.9. For parents, the picture is mixed: while proficiency in core subjects lags significantly behind state averages, the school’s strong Earth Science results, solid performance in advanced math classes, and better-than-expected attendance provide a foundation to build on. The noticeable decline in 8th-grade advanced math proficiency bears watching, but Elko’s response to high economic disadvantage is not uniformly negative.