Summary:
Zip code 25302 in West Virginia is served by a single middle school, West Side Middle School, which enrolls 374 students in grades 6 through 8 as part of the Kanawha County Schools district.
West Side Middle School faces significant academic challenges, with proficiency rates in every subject and grade level running at roughly half or less of both district and state averages. For the 2025-2026 school year, only 14.8% of students scored proficient in mathematics across all grades, compared to 41.3% for the district and 39.4% statewide. English Language Arts (ELA) performance is stronger but still low, with 27% proficiency versus about 47.6% for both the district and state. The school’s state ranking reflects this struggle, placing it in the bottom 2% of West Virginia middle schools for the past two years, including a last-place finish (169th out of 169) in 2023-2024. However, there is a slight upward trend in ranking, improving to 158th out of 161 in 2025-2026.
Despite the low overall scores, there are some encouraging signs. Proficiency improves steadily as students advance from 6th to 8th grade in both math (9.3% to 21.2%) and ELA (20.7% to 31.9%), suggesting that students are making academic progress during their time at the school, even if they remain behind state averages. The school also shows a relative strength in ELA compared to math, with ELA proficiency nearly double that of math. With a student-teacher ratio of 12.4 and per-student spending of $15,134, the school has resources that do not appear to translate into high test scores, which may point to broader socioeconomic factors or other challenges not captured in this data. For parents considering this school, it is important to understand that while the school is working to improve, it currently serves a student body that is significantly below grade-level expectations compared to the rest of the state.
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