Summary:
Zip code 25043 is home to a single public high school, Clay County High School, which serves grades 9 through 12 in the rural community of Clay, West Virginia, with an enrollment of 520 students.
For parents in this area, the most important story is the school’s dramatic recent turnaround. In the 2024-2025 school year, Clay County High School ranked 96th out of 111 schools in the state, placing it in the bottom 14% with a 1-star rating. Just one year later, the school jumped to 41st out of 105 schools, landing in the 61st percentile with a 3-star rating—a remarkable leap of 55 positions. This improvement is backed by real gains in the classroom: 11th-grade math proficiency nearly doubled from 10.2% to 20%, and English Language Arts proficiency rose from 39.7% to 52%. Science also improved, though more modestly, from 19.4% to 20.8%. The school’s graduation rate stands at 92.0%, just below the state average of 92.8%, and the student-teacher ratio is a comfortable 15.2 to 1.
Despite the impressive gains, challenges remain. In the most recent school year, math proficiency (20%) and science proficiency (20.8%) still trail state averages (20.6% and 23.6%, respectively), though ELA proficiency now slightly exceeds the state average. The 2024-2025 school year appears to have been an unusually low point, making the current surge look like a strong recovery. It is also worth noting that the data lacks free/reduced lunch information, which makes it harder to understand the socioeconomic context, and the spending per student figure of $13,685 is from 2018-2019 and may be outdated. Overall, Clay County High School is part of the Clay County Schools district, which ranks 19th out of 54 districts in West Virginia, and the school’s recent trajectory suggests a positive direction for families considering this area.
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