Summary:
Zip code 25134 in Miami, West Virginia, is served by a single elementary school, Sharon Dawes Elementary School, which enrolls 148 students in grades PK through 5 as part of the Kanawha County Schools district.
For parents considering this area, Sharon Dawes Elementary presents a mixed but improving picture. The school’s standout strength is mathematics, where 57.4% of students are proficient—a full 18 percentage points above the state average of 39.4%. This advantage is most pronounced in 3rd grade, where 73.3% of students meet math standards, and it remains strong in 4th grade at 60.0%. However, the same cannot be said for English Language Arts (ELA) and science. ELA proficiency sits at just 35.2%, which is 12.4 points below the state average, and 5th grade science proficiency is a concerning 10.5%, compared to 34.6% statewide. Performance also declines as students advance: math proficiency falls from 73.3% in 3rd grade to 42.1% in 5th grade, and ELA drops from 33.3% to 26.3% over the same span. This suggests strong early foundations that are not being fully built upon in upper elementary grades.
Encouragingly, the school has shown significant momentum in its overall state ranking, jumping from the 10th percentile (1 star) in 2023-2024 to the 35th percentile (2 stars) in both 2024-2025 and 2025-2026—a leap of over 100 positions. With a favorable 12.3:1 student-to-teacher ratio and per-student spending of $15,642, the school has solid resources, though outcomes in ELA and science suggest those funds may be more heavily weighted toward math instruction. As the only school in the zip code, it serves as the community’s educational hub, and the small cohort size means individual student performance can heavily influence overall statistics—particularly in 5th grade science, where a few students can swing the percentage dramatically. Parents should weigh the school’s clear math excellence and improving trajectory against its literacy and science gaps when making decisions.
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