Summary:
Zip code 26416 is home to just one elementary school, Philippi Elementary School, which serves grades PK through 4 and enrolls 387 students in the Philippi, WV area.
For parents considering this school, the most important takeaway is that Philippi Elementary School shows a clear strength in 3rd grade mathematics, where 55.2% of students are proficient—well above the state average of 39.4%. However, this advantage disappears by 4th grade, where math proficiency plummets to just 27.1%, a dramatic 28-point drop that is nearly three times steeper than the district-wide decline. English Language Arts performance is more consistent between grades (around 33% proficient) but sits 14.6 points below the state average. The school operates within the Barbour County Schools district, which ranks in the bottom 8% of West Virginia districts, yet Philippi still outperforms its district in math by 12.7 points. The student-teacher ratio of 15.4:1 is reasonable, and per-student spending is $10,683, though this data is from 2018-2019.
The school's ranking has been volatile, moving from the 20th percentile in 2023-2024 to the 30th percentile in 2024-2025, then dropping to the 15th percentile in 2025-2026, with a 1-star rating in two of the last three years. This instability, combined with the sharp 4th grade math decline, suggests that while the school has pockets of success—particularly in early elementary math—there are significant challenges in sustaining academic growth as students advance. Parents should be aware that the school's overall profile is "math strong, reading weak," and that the 4th grade transition appears to be a critical point where many students struggle. The lack of free/reduced lunch data and more recent spending figures makes it difficult to fully assess the school's context, but the 3rd grade math results indicate that targeted interventions in 4th grade math and consistent ELA support could help stabilize performance.
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