Virginia L. Murray Elementary
The smallest school in the Western Albemarle feeder pattern — a compact Ivy-corridor campus where a grade is a handful of sections, not a wing.
By Josh Keeton, Town Realty · Updated
Grades PK–5 · Students 273 · Address 3251 Morgantown Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903 · Phone 434-977-4599
The Virginia L. Murray Elementary zone in color, with the neighborhoods in it. Click a neighborhood to see it.
Which neighborhoods are in the Virginia L. Murray Elementary zone?
Murray serves a compact portion of the Ivy corridor west of Charlottesville. Its boundary with Ivy Elementary is the one most families get wrong, because both schools serve the same general area from opposite ends of it.
Virginia L. Murray Elementary is a PK–5 Albemarle County public school in the Ivy corridor west of Charlottesville, and the smallest of the four elementary schools in the Western Albemarle feeder pattern. Its students continue to Joseph T. Henley Middle School and then Western Albemarle High School, exactly like the two Crozet schools.
Size is the whole story here. A small school means fewer sections per grade, a staff that knows every family, and a cohort your child will move through all six years with — which some kids need and others outgrow. It also means the attendance boundary is tight, and it sits right beside Ivy Elementary, so the address is the only thing that settles which one you get.
Where is Virginia L. Murray Elementary?
Virginia L. Murray Elementary is at 3251 Morgantown Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903. The school's phone number is 434-977-4599.
What grades does Virginia L. Murray Elementary teach, and is it accredited?
Virginia L. Murray Elementary teaches grades PK–5 and is fully accredited for 2025-26, per the Virginia Department of Education.
Where do Virginia L. Murray Elementary students go for middle and high school?
Joseph T. Henley Middle School, then Western Albemarle High School. Murray students join the Crozet and Ivy cohorts in sixth grade, which is when the smallest elementary school in the pattern feeds into the same building as the largest.
How many students attend Virginia L. Murray Elementary?
273 students in 2024-25 (fall membership), a student-teacher ratio of 13.51:1.
What are the bell times at Virginia L. Murray Elementary?
School starts at 7:55 a.m. and dismissal begins at 2:25 p.m., with drop-off from 7:40 a.m., per the school's family information sheet. Students arriving after 8:00 a.m. are marked tardy.
That sheet was last updated June 29, 2026. Murray's 7:55 start is more than an hour before Henley's 9:05 first block, so families with a middle schooler too are looking at two separate morning runs.
Is there before- and after-school care at Virginia L. Murray Elementary?
After-school care, yes: the county's After School Enrichment Program (ASEP) runs at every elementary school, Murray included, from dismissal until 5:45 p.m. on full school days. Before-school care isn't listed in the program's description.
Families choose full-time (4–5 days a week) or part-time (1–3 days). Spots depend on staffing and space, so registration is a lottery with a waitlist, and the program doesn't run on half-days. On student holidays, a separate Student Holiday Program runs 7:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. at Agnor Elementary, not in Crozet.
Quick answers
What areas are zoned for Virginia L. Murray Elementary?
Murray serves a compact portion of the Ivy corridor west of Charlottesville, sharing that general area with Ivy Elementary. Because the two schools draw from opposite ends of the same corridor, the street address is the only reliable way to tell which zone a home falls in.
Is Murray Elementary in Crozet?
No. Murray is in the Ivy corridor west of Charlottesville, with a Charlottesville mailing address. It belongs to the same Western Albemarle feeder pattern as the Crozet schools, which is why it appears in Crozet school research.
How small is Murray Elementary?
It is the smallest of the four elementary schools in the Western Albemarle pattern, with correspondingly few sections per grade level. Confirm current enrollment against the Virginia Department of Education's most recent fall count, since small schools shift proportionally more year to year.
What middle and high school does Murray Elementary feed into?
Joseph T. Henley Middle School for grades 6 through 8, then Western Albemarle High School for grades 9 through 12 — identical to the other three elementary schools in the pattern.
Murray or Ivy Elementary — is one better?
Neither is a tier above the other. Both are zoned Albemarle County schools in the Ivy corridor feeding the same middle and high school; the practical differences are school size and which side of the attendance boundary a home sits on.
Sources
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