Vernon Johns Middle

Vernon Johns Middle is a middle school of average-sized scale in Petersburg, Virginia, one of the schools within Petersburg City Public Schools, enrolling 949 students in grades 6 through 8. That puts it 27% bigger than the typical public school in Virginia, which averages around 750 students.

Within Petersburg City Public Schools, which oversees 7 schools and 4,582 students, Vernon Johns Middle is one campus in the system.

Demographically, Vernon Johns Middle lists that 83% of students identify as Black, making the school strongly Black-majority. Beyond that, the school logs 11% Hispanic, 5% White.

On the resource side, The school currently runs with 61 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 15.6:1. The state averages around 13.1:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. Roughly 92% of students at Vernon Johns Middle qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Vernon Johns Middle falls in the UNDERPERFORMING tier of the BeatsExpectations residual. Given its student profile, a typical campus would land near 62.9%; this one comes in at 36.5%, -26.4 points off the demographic line.

In the broader community, Petersburg city reports that median household earnings sit near $50,698, about 25% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 20%. Vernon Johns Middle is one of 9 public schools in Petersburg city (combined enrollment of about 4,582 students).

Nearest neighbor: Petersburg High, around 0.2 miles off. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Vernon Johns Middle comes 5th of 8 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 42.9%.

The school occupies a countryside site.

Five-year trend. Vernon Johns Middle's enrollment has ticked up 31% since 2018, when it stood at 723 (now 949). The Black share of enrollment contracted from 92% to 83% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio grew from 12.9:1 in 2018 to 15.6:1 today.

Within the allk12 community for this school, the feed for Vernon Johns Middle typically covers open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.