Ruffner, 610 May Ave.: grades 3 to 8, 600 students in fall 2025, state score 66.71 (Approaching Expectations). Office: 757-628-2466.

Last checked Oct. 20, 2026. Sources: Ruffner, Norfolk Public Schools, the Virginia Department of Education’s School Quality Profile, the federal NCES school directory and the division’s 2026-27 boundary maps.

Ruffner School serves third grade through eighth grade at 610 May Ave. for Norfolk Public Schools (NPS). It had 600 students in fall 2025, the state’s count shows.

Who to call
Address 610 May Ave., Norfolk, VA 23504
Phone 757-628-2466
Grades 3 to 8
Student hours 8:15 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Office hours 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Website ra.npsk12.com
Division Norfolk Public Schools

Principal

Principal Kathryn Caple, according to the school’s website. The site also lists Kenyetta Alexander and Peter Cenzalli as assistant principals.

Enrollment and teachers

  • State count: 600 students in fall 2025, compared with 576 in fall 2024 and 540 in fall 2023, according to the School Quality Profile.
  • Federal count: 540 students in the 2023-24 school year, with 52 full-time-equivalent teachers, according to the NCES directory. That works out to about 10 students per teacher.

State report card

Virginia rates schools two ways. Accreditation shows whether a school meets the state’s Standards of Accreditation; a fully accredited school “submitted all required evidence to the Department of Education as prescribed in the Standards of Accreditation,” the profile says. The School Performance and Support Framework gives each school a score and one of four performance levels: Distinguished, Meets Expectations, Approaching Expectations or Needs Intensive Support.

  • Accreditation: Conditionally Accredited for 2025-26. Ruffner is the only Norfolk school that is not fully accredited, the state’s division summary shows.
  • Framework score: 66.71, performance level Approaching Expectations, in the state’s division summary.

Standards of Learning pass rates (share of tested students who passed):

Subject 2023-24 2024-25 2025-26
Reading 29% 38% 32%
Math 22% 25% 24%
Science 22% 27% 22%
History and social science 20% 35% 28%

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

Attendance zone and feeder schools

Look up any address in the division’s Find My School map, or see the 2026-27 boundaries in its Redistricting Locator. Zones do not follow neighborhood or ZIP code lines, so check the address, not the area.

Feeder schools: we laid the division’s 2026-27 elementary, middle and high school boundary layers over the city’s 78,561 address points. These elementary zones make up the Ruffner zone: Richard Bowling Elementary (28%), Chesterfield Academy (27%), Jacox Elementary (26%) and P.B. Young Sr. Elementary (18%). Only part of some of those zones falls inside it.

High school: addresses in the zone are assigned to Booker T. Washington High (56%), Lake Taylor High (23%), Norview High (11%) and Granby High (10%). Middle and high school zones do not line up exactly, so classmates can split between high schools.

Calendar and bell times

From the division’s 2026-27 academic calendar (PDF):

  • Tuesday, Nov. 3: teacher workday, no school for students
  • Wednesday, Nov. 11: Veterans Day, schools closed
  • Nov. 25-27: Thanksgiving holiday, schools closed
  • Dec. 21 to Jan. 1: winter break
  • Monday, Jan. 18: Martin Luther King Jr. Day, schools closed
  • March 29 to April 2, 2027: spring break
  • Friday, June 4, 2027: last day of school, early release

Students attend from 8:15 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. and the office is open 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., according to the division’s school hours page. On a two-hour delay, school starts at 10:15 a.m.

Programs

Ruffner also runs Compass Academy at Ruffner, which the division describes as a “city-wide choice program” for grades 3 to 8 with pathways in “engineering, science, arts, technology, and leadership,” on its specialty programs page. The school holds a Compass Academy specialty program night from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22, its calendar shows.

More on Norfolk schools

Frequently asked questions

What grades does Ruffner serve?

Third grade through eighth grade. It is part of Norfolk Public Schools and had 600 students in fall 2025, the state’s count shows.

How is Ruffner rated by the state?

On Virginia’s School Performance and Support Framework it scored 66.71 and is rated Approaching Expectations, and it is conditionally accredited for 2025-26, according to the state’s School Quality Profile.

What time does Ruffner start?

Students attend from 8:15 a.m. to 2:45 p.m., according to the division’s school hours page. A two-hour delay moves the start to 10:15 a.m.