Schools in Zip Code 24087

Zip code 24087 in Elliston, Virginia is home to two schools in Montgomery County Public Schools (ranked 51st out of 131 Virginia districts): Eastern Montgomery Elementary (grades PK-5, 376 students) and Eastern Montgomery High (grades 9-12, 254 students). Both schools serve economically disadvantaged communities, with 88.0% of elementary and 84.7% of high school students eligible for free/reduced lunch.

Eastern Montgomery Elementary stands out for its relatively low chronic absenteeism of 11.0% despite its very high poverty rate, beating both the district (13.6%) and state (14.8%) averages. However, academic proficiency remains well below district and state levels: only 36.4% of 5th graders were proficient in math versus 76.6% district-wide, and 5th-grade science proficiency was 43.9% compared to 73.4% district-wide, leaving the school in the 12th percentile statewide. Eastern Montgomery High, on the other hand, struggles with a 28.2% chronic absenteeism rate — nearly double the district and state averages — and has shown extreme volatility, improving to the 44th percentile in 2024-25 before collapsing to the 8th percentile in 2025-26.

The high school's sharp one-year drop is striking: Algebra I proficiency fell from 92.5% to 73.5%, 9th-grade Biology from 87.1% to 63.8%, and 10th-grade Biology from 78.6% to 65.5%. Notably, Eastern Montgomery High spends about 43% more per student ($16,628 vs. $11,646) and maintains smaller classes (9.8 vs. 12.9 student-teacher ratio), yet ranks lower than Eastern Montgomery Elementary — indicating that spending and class size alone are not solving deeper challenges. There are some bright spots: elementary 4th-grade reading jumped from 40.9% to 63.6%, and high school 10th-grade Biology (65.5%) still edged out the district average (61.8%). Overall, the most urgent issue facing these schools is the high school's chronic absenteeism, which appears to be a major driver of its recent academic collapse and low state ranking.