Westhaven Elementary

Westhaven Elementary, a small elementary-level community in Portsmouth, Virginia, part of Portsmouth City Public Schools, enrolls 401 students, covering grades K through 6.

Westhaven Elementary is one of 22 schools operated by Portsmouth City Public Schools, a district that works with 12,905 students overall.

On the student-mix side, Westhaven Elementary shows that the largest single group is Black, at 67% of enrollment; the rest breaks down as 16% White, 9% multiracial, 8% Hispanic. That is meaningfully more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 51%.

On the income-and-resources front, Westhaven Elementary shows 35 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 11.5:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 13.8:1 average. Roughly 100% of students at Westhaven Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, On a poverty-adjusted basis, Westhaven Elementary sits in the bottom 10% statewide. Predicted proficiency from the FRL regression is roughly 60.9%; actual is 35.6%, a gap of -25.3 points.

Around the school, ACS estimates for Portsmouth city put median household income runs about $60,491, roughly 24% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 14%. Across Portsmouth city's 24 public schools (combined enrollment of about 12,905 students), Westhaven Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Mount Hermon Preschool Center is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.7 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Westhaven Elementary. Among the 7 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Westhaven Elementary ranks 6th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 52.3%.

The school occupies an inner-city site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count edged down 31%: 579 students in 2018 compared to 401 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share ticked down from 30% to 16%. Class-load math has tightened: from 16.8:1 in 2018 to 11.5:1 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, recent activity here tends to focus on open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.