Kanawha
West Virginia Has Lost Students for 13 Straight Years
No state in the country has had a year like West Virginia just did. The 2025-26 school year brought the steepest single-year enrollment loss since COVID, with 7,693 students vanishing from the rolls. ...
Only Two of 55 WV Counties Have Recovered from COVID
In the fall of 2019, West Virginia enrolled 265,344 public school students across 55 county systems. Seven years later, the state enrolls 229,646, a loss of 35,698 students, or 13.5%. Of the 55 counti...
Berkeley County: West Virginia's lone bright spot
Of West Virginia's 55 county school districts, 52 have fewer students today than they did in 2011. The state as a whole has lost 52,484 students over that span, an 18.6% decline that ranks among the s...
West Virginia's Kindergarten Classes Have Shrunk 27% Since 2011
In 2010-11, West Virginia enrolled 21,245 kindergartners. This past fall, the number was 15,469. That is a loss of 5,776 children, a 27.2% decline, in 15 years.
Forty-Nine of Fifty-Five at All-Time Lows
Doddridge County enrolled 1,211 students in 2026. It is the only county school district in West Virginia at an all-time enrollment high.
Kanawha County hits all-time low after losing 6,400 students
Every year since 2014, Kanawha County has started the school year with fewer students than the year before. Thirteen consecutive years of decline have carried West Virginia's largest district from 28,...
West Virginia Loses 7,693 Students in a Single Year
The last time West Virginia's public schools lost this many students in a single year, a pandemic had just shuttered classrooms across the state. In 2025-26, there is no pandemic. There is no hurrican...
The Hope Scholarship Shadow: 21,000 Fewer Students in Four Years
West Virginia's public schools lost 7,693 students this year, a 3.2% drop that ranks as the second-largest single-year loss in the state's recorded history. Only the pandemic year of 2020-21, when 8,9...