Virginia Avenue Charlotte DeHart Elementary, 550 Virginia Ave.: pre-K to grade 4, 410 students in fall 2025, fully accredited, framework score 82.2. Office: 540-665-6330.

Last checked Oct. 20, 2026. Sources: Virginia Avenue Charlotte DeHart Elementary, Winchester Public Schools, the Virginia Department of Education’s School Quality Profile, the federal NCES school directory and the city’s school district map layer.

Virginia Avenue Charlotte DeHart Elementary School serves pre-K through fourth grade at 550 Virginia Ave. for Winchester Public Schools (WPS), one of the division’s four elementary schools. It had 410 students in fall 2025, the state’s count shows. Its mascot is the Little Judges, and the division calls it VACDES. The current school opened in fall 1995 and was renamed for its first principal, Charlotte DeHart; the original Virginia Avenue School building was completed in 1931, according to its about page.

Who to call
Address 550 Virginia Ave., Winchester, VA 22601
Phone 540-665-6330
Grades Pre-K to 4
School day 7:50 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Website vacdes.wps.k12.va.us
Division Winchester Public Schools

Principal

Principal Alli Di Giovanni, according to the school’s website; the state profile spells her name DiGiovanni. The page says she was an assistant principal at Daniel Morgan Intermediate and began her career as an art teacher at Daniel Morgan Middle and John Handley High.

Enrollment and teachers

  • State count: 410 students in fall 2025, compared with 415 in fall 2024 and 414 in fall 2023, according to the School Quality Profile. Fall 2025 broke down as 28 in pre-K, 69 in kindergarten, 69 in first grade, 66 in second grade, 84 in third grade and 94 in fourth grade.
  • Federal count: 414 students in the 2023-24 school year, with 31 full-time-equivalent teachers, according to the NCES directory. That works out to about 13 students per teacher.

State report card

Virginia rates schools two ways. Accreditation means a school “submitted all required evidence to the Department of Education as prescribed in the Standards of Accreditation,” in the words of the state profile. The School Performance and Support Framework gives each school a score and one of four performance levels: Distinguished, Meets Expectations, Approaching Expectations and Needs Intensive Support.

  • Accreditation: Fully Accredited, the state’s designation for the 2025-26 school year.
  • Framework score: 82.2, performance level Meets Expectations, in the state’s division summary.

Standards of Learning pass rates (share of tested students who passed, all tests in the subject; state tests start in third grade):

Subject 2023-24 2024-25 2025-26
English reading 54% 40% 49%
Math 57% 47% 62%
History and social science 63% 42% 52%

The full profile also reports attendance, student groups, teacher data and spending.

Programs

Leadership theme: the about page gives the school’s theme as “Local Leaders Today! Global Leaders Tomorrow!” and says leadership skills are taught from kindergarten.

Attendance zone and feeder schools

Winchester has four elementary zones, and they do not follow neighborhood lines. Enter an address in WebQuery and choose the grade (K for preschool) to see the school and bus stop, or call the school. Families near the school can check the division’s walk zone maps.

By our count of the city’s address points on its School Districts map layer, the Virginia Avenue Charlotte DeHart Elementary zone takes in all of the North planning area, about half of the Northeast area (49% of its address points), a third of the Old Town/North Central area (33%) and small parts of the Northwest (10%) and West Central (3%) areas. See our neighborhood guides for North, Northeast, Old Town, Northwest and West Central. The other elementary schools are Frederick Douglass Elementary, Garland R. Quarles Elementary and John Kerr Elementary.

Feeder schools: every WPS student goes on to Daniel Morgan Intermediate for fifth and sixth grade, Daniel Morgan Middle for seventh and eighth, and John Handley High, according to the division’s list of schools. Zones stop at the city line: homes with a Winchester mailing address in ZIP codes 22602 and 22603 are in Frederick County, which runs its own schools.

Calendar and bell times

From the division’s 2026-27 calendar:

  • Tuesday, Nov. 3: teacher professional development day
  • Nov. 25-27: fall break
  • Friday, Dec. 18: end of the second quarter, holiday early release
  • Dec. 21 to Jan. 1: winter break; Monday, Jan. 4, is a teacher professional development day
  • Monday, Jan. 18: division holiday
  • March 26 and March 29 to April 2: spring break
  • Friday, May 28: last day of school, early release

The calendar sets elementary hours at 7:50 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The school’s own page lists parent drop-off from 7:25 a.m., the tardy bell at 7:50 a.m. and pickup at 2:30 p.m. Closings and delays are posted on the division’s closings page.

More on Winchester schools

Frequently asked questions

What grades does Virginia Avenue Charlotte DeHart Elementary serve?

Pre-K through fourth grade. It had 410 students in fall 2025, the state’s count shows. Fifth graders move on to Daniel Morgan Intermediate.

How is Virginia Avenue Charlotte DeHart Elementary rated by the state?

It is fully accredited for 2025-26. On Virginia’s School Performance and Support Framework it scored 82.2 and is rated Meets Expectations, according to the state’s School Quality Profiles.

Which high school does Virginia Avenue Charlotte DeHart Elementary feed into?

John Handley High School, by way of Daniel Morgan Intermediate for fifth and sixth grade and Daniel Morgan Middle for seventh and eighth grade. Every Winchester Public Schools student attends those three schools.

What time does Virginia Avenue Charlotte DeHart Elementary start?

Elementary school runs from 7:50 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., according to the division’s 2026-27 calendar. The school lists drop-off from 7:25 a.m.