Summary:
Zip code 26330 in Bridgeport, West Virginia, is served by two elementary schools—Johnson Elementary School and Simpson Elementary School—both part of Harrison County Schools, a district ranked in the top third of the state, and together they educate roughly 1,264 students in grades Pre-K through 5th.
For parents, the standout choice is Johnson Elementary, which ranks 40th out of 355 West Virginia elementary schools (89th percentile) with a 4-star rating. It outperforms Simpson by 20.8 percentage points in Math (65.7% vs. 44.9% proficiency) and 14.6 points in English Language Arts (62.6% vs. 48.0%). Johnson exceeds state averages in every subject and grade level, with particularly strong results in 4th grade Math (69.8%) and 5th grade ELA (67.9%). Simpson, by contrast, has fallen dramatically from 94th to 218th in the state rankings over the past year, dropping from a 4-star to a 2-star rating. Its most alarming decline is in 5th grade Science, which plummeted from 50.7% to 27.5% proficiency. Simpson's 3rd grade ELA is also a critical weak point at just 34.3% proficiency—20 points below Johnson's same-grade performance.
Both schools operate with nearly identical resources: student-to-teacher ratios around 17.5:1 and per-student spending of roughly $11,400–$11,500. This makes Johnson's consistent excellence particularly notable—it achieves top-tier results at the same cost as Simpson, suggesting school-level factors like leadership and teaching quality drive the gap. Simpson shows a peculiar grade-level pattern, with 4th grade as its strongest year (52% Math, 57.1% ELA) but a sharp drop-off in 5th grade (37.5% Math). For parents weighing options, Johnson offers proven, stable high performance across all subjects, while Simpson's recent decline—especially in Science and early literacy—warrants close attention and may signal a school in need of intervention.
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