Lucy S. Herring Elementary

Lucy S. Herring Elementary is a K-5 school of small scale in Asheville, North Carolina, run under Asheville City Schools, instructing 255 students in grades pre-K through 5. Compared to the state average of about 467 students per school, that is 45% below typical.

Asheville City Schools runs 9 schools in total, collectively educating 4,177 students. Lucy S. Herring Elementary is one of those campuses.

On demographics, Lucy S. Herring Elementary lists that 68% of the student body identifies as White. Beyond that, the school shows 13% Black, 11% Hispanic, 7% multiracial. That is considerably less White than the county at large, where the share is closer to 82%.

On the income-and-resources front, Staff filings list 22 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 11.4:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 14.9:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. Around 46% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is lower than Buncombe County's rate of about 88%.

After controlling for student poverty, Lucy S. Herring Elementary sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 64.7%; this one delivers 67.1%.

Across the wider county, the surrounding county (Buncombe County) logs that median household income runs about $74,436, roughly 46% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 6% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Buncombe County runs 61 public schools (combined enrollment of about 29,908 students), of which Lucy S. Herring Elementary is one.

Nearest neighbor: Francine Delany New School, around 0.5 miles off. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Lucy S. Herring Elementary comes 1st of 5 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 44.9%.

Geographically, the school is in an inner-city area.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count fell 40%: 422 students in 2018 compared to 255 in 2025. The White share of enrollment increased from 62% to 68% over that span. Class-load math has tightened: from 13.6:1 in 2018 to 11.4:1 in 2025.

Within the allk12 community for this school, recent activity here tends to focus on enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. Members of the school community can share what they know.