McDowell County
Boone County Was Below 90% Attendance in Six of Eight Years
Boone County Schools reported attendance below 90% in six of the eight school years from 2017-18 through 2024-25. Its rate was 89.0% in 2017-18 and 88.7% in 2024-25, a decline of 0.3 percentage points...
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...
Mingo County Cleared 90% Attendance. Four Coal Neighbors Are Still Climbing Back.
> Correction (May 29, 2026): An earlier version of this article overstated several figures. There are 16 schools statewide below 88% attendance (not 14), two of them outside the coal corridor. The fiv...
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...
One in Three: Clay County's Hidden Housing Crisis
In Clay County, 447 of the school system's 1,336 students are classified as experiencing homelessness under federal law. That is 33.5% of enrollment, a rate more than eight times the statewide average...
A 13,000-Student Gap Shrinks to 726
In 2011, seven coal counties in southern West Virginia enrolled 42,554 students. Three Eastern Panhandle counties, tucked against the Maryland border 250 miles away, enrolled 29,182. The gap between 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...
McDowell County has lost 42% of its students
In 2010-11, McDowell County enrolled 3,559 students. Fifteen years later, the number is 2,075. That is a loss of 1,484 students, a 41.7% decline, the steepest of any county in West Virginia. It is als...
One in Five WV Students Now Receives Special Education
West Virginia has lost 52,484 students since the 2010-11 school year, an 18.6% decline that has shuttered schools and strained budgets across all 55 counties. Special education enrollment moved in the...
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,...