Tolsia High School

Tolsia High School is a small rural high school in Fort Gay, WV, serving about 349 students in grades 9-12 as part of Wayne County Schools. The school maintains a favorable student-teacher ratio of 10.7:1, but its overall state ranking places it in the lower-middle tier of West Virginia high schools, with recent performance earning 1-2 stars.

Academically, Tolsia shows a striking split between subjects. English Language Arts is a relative strength, with proficiency rates holding steady between 37.5% and 45.6% over the past four years—a solid foundation to build on. Mathematics, however, is a persistent challenge, with proficiency never exceeding 18.3% and dropping to 11% in 2023-2024, consistently lagging state averages by 6-10 points. Science performance sits in the middle at 18.8% proficiency. The school demonstrates notable effectiveness with vulnerable populations: it ranked in the 58-59th percentile for low-income students in recent years and earned 4 stars for supporting homeless students in 2025-2026. However, graduation rates have declined from an excellent 95.6% in 2022-2023 to 88.8% in 2024-2025, now falling below the state average.

Compared to nearby schools, Tolsia outperforms Wayne High School in math (14.1% vs. 10.6%) and has a slightly better graduation rate (88.8% vs. 86.1%), but Wayne significantly leads in ELA (53.2% vs. 37.5%) and overall ranking. Tug Valley High School in Mingo County Schools outperforms Tolsia across all subjects, particularly math (27.9% vs. 14.1%), and boasts a much stronger graduation rate (94.3%). Notably, Tolsia spends $12,630 per student—more than Wayne but less than Tug Valley—yet achieves lower outcomes than both, suggesting that strategic reallocation of resources toward math intervention could be beneficial. Year-over-year performance swings, especially by gender, likely reflect small cohort sizes rather than consistent patterns.