Kanawha
West Virginia's Special Ed Attendance Gap Has Not Budged in Eight Years
Correction (July 21, 2026): An earlier version reported that special education students represented 16.3% of West Virginia enrollment in 2017-18. The package-derived share is 16.4%. The article also c...
Kanawha County's Attendance Hit an All-Time Low While the State Improved
George Washington High School in Charleston posted a 95.2% attendance rate in 2024-25, higher than the state average, and among the best high schools in West Virginia. Twelve miles south, Riverside Hi...
92 of 117 West Virginia High Schools Hit 90% Attendance in 2024-25
Most West Virginia high schools are holding the line. 92 of 117 posted attendance rates at or above 90% in 2024-25, including Oak Glen High School in Hancock County at 96.2% and George Washington High...
16 West Virginia Counties Have Recovered Pre-COVID Attendance; 15 More on Three-Year Improvement Streaks
Tucker County added 1.74 percentage points to its attendance rate between 2018-19 and 2024-25. Morgan County lost 3.22 points over the same period. Both are small, rural, overwhelmingly white counties...
One in 18 West Virginia Students Is Now Classified as Homeless
In Jefferson County, 1,160 students are classified as homeless, more than any other county in the state, in a district you might not associate with the word. Jefferson County sits in the Eastern Panha...
West Virginia's Attendance Recovery Is Running Out of Steam
The math looked promising in 2024. West Virginia had just posted its strongest attendance improvement since the pandemic crash, gaining 0.58 percentage points in a single year. Counties were hiring Tr...
West Virginia Has Lost Enrollment for 13 Straight Years
> Correction: An earlier version used stale enrollment values. This version uses the current West Virginia Department of Education enrollment release and re-runs the full 2011-2026 panel.
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 had fewer students in 2025-26 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 t...
West Virginia Kindergarten Enrollment Fell 25.7% Since 2011
> Correction: An earlier version used stale kindergarten, grade-level and county values and included unsupported projections. This version uses the current published 2011-2026 panel and limits the int...
Three West Virginia Districts Grew Since 2011. Forty-Eight Are at Historical Lows.
> Correction: An earlier version used an outdated enrollment panel. This version uses the current published 2011-2026 panel and updates the statewide and county-system figures.
Kanawha County hits all-time low after losing 6,326 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's Enrollment Loss Is the Largest Since COVID
The current West Virginia enrollment panel shows 234,957 public school students in 2025-26, down 6,067 from 2024-25 — a 2.5% decline. The 2021 loss was larger, at 9,276 students; the 2025-26 loss is t...
The Hope Scholarship Shadow: 21,000 Fewer Students in Four Years
West Virginia's public schools lost 7,693 students in 2025-26, 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,...