Posted on August 19, 2026 by Miller and Smith Blog Team
Most people looking at Short Pump start with the house. Square footage, whether the kitchen opens onto the main living space, how many people can sit at the island on a Tuesday night. Then, usually somewhere around the second or third drive out here, a different question takes over. It almost always arrives as a text message to a friend who already lives in the area: what are the schools like?
It is a fair question, and a surprisingly hard one to research, because most of what comes back is a rating out of ten with no explanation attached to it. Ratings move around from year to year, attendance zones get redrawn as the county grows, and a single number tells you almost nothing about what a school is like day to day.
So this is the version we wish existed when people first started asking us about schools in Glen Allen, VA. What the district looks like, which schools currently serve the Short Pump area, how the county specialty programs work, and where to go to confirm any of it before you make a decision.
Glen Allen and Short Pump both sit in the West End of Henrico County, and every public school here belongs to Henrico County Public Schools. It is one of the larger divisions in Virginia.
| Henrico County Public Schools at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Students | Roughly 49,000 |
| Elementary schools | About 46 |
| Middle schools | 12 |
| Comprehensive high schools | 9 |
| Advanced Career Education centers | 3, at Hermitage, Highland Springs, and Virginia Randolph |
| Also operates | Alternative program centers and a virtual academy |
| High school specialty centers | About a dozen, open countywide by application |
A division this size can staff a high school course catalog deep enough that a student who wants three years of engineering, or a full IB diploma, can get it, and it can run a dozen application-based specialty programs on top of that. The tradeoff is that the individual schools are big. Glen Allen High enrolls a little over 2,000 students, a scale that some students take to right away and others need a year to get used to.
One thing trips up nearly everyone relocating from out of state. In Henrico you are not choosing a school by choosing a town, you are choosing by address, and two houses on the same road can feed different elementary schools. The county redraws boundaries as new neighborhoods come online.
For addresses in and around Sadler Square, our community in the Short Pump area of Glen Allen, the currently listed school assignments run like this:
| Level | School | Grades | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elementary | Rivers Edge Elementary | PK to 5 | Holman Ridge Road, Glen Allen |
| Middle | Holman Middle School | 6 to 8 | Concourse Boulevard, Glen Allen |
| High | Glen Allen High School | 9 to 12 | Staples Mill Road, Glen Allen |
One important note before you go any further. School assignments are subject to change, and boundary maps are updated as the county grows. Verify your specific address directly with Henrico County Public Schools before you make a purchase decision.
Rivers Edge Elementary sits on Holman Ridge Road and serves preschool through fifth grade, with an enrollment around 735 students. Gifted programming is available, and the school runs before-school and after-school clubs, which is how a lot of new residents end up meeting their neighbors.
The wider Short Pump and Glen Allen area also includes Short Pump Elementary and David A. Kaechele Elementary among others, worth knowing if you are looking at houses on more than one street.
For a rising kindergartner, the registration process is straightforward once you know what it asks for:
If you are closing on a home mid-year, contact the school directly rather than waiting for the registration window. Transfers happen year round.
Holman Middle School on Concourse Boulevard covers grades six through eight and enrolls roughly 860 students. Gifted programming continues here, and the school runs the usual middle school ecosystem of athletics, band, orchestra, and clubs.
Middle school here moves faster than most people expect.
Math placement and specialty center applications both land before high school starts, which makes the sixth grade year less low-stakes than it looks:
| Grade | What happens | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 6th | Math placement sets the sequence for the next several years | Meet the school counselor early and ask about accelerated tracks |
| 7th | Accelerated students may begin Algebra I | Check whether the pathway leads where the student wants to go |
| 8th | Specialty center applications open in November | Attend fall open houses, then apply before the deadline |
Glen Allen High School opened in 2010 on Staples Mill Road and is home to the Jaguars. It enrolls a little over 2,000 students, and its building is the only Gold level LEED certified school in the county.
Most of the student body takes at least one Advanced Placement course before graduating. Both standard and advanced diplomas are offered, and the advanced track is the one we get asked about first.
You will hear other West End high schools named, and they matter even if you are not zoned for them, because their specialty programs accept students countywide:
People moving in from out of state usually do not know about this part, and it changes the calculation on which house to buy.
Henrico runs about a dozen specialty center programs at the high school level, and they are open by application to students countywide regardless of which school you are zoned for. Students apply during eighth grade, applications generally open in November, and the programs host open houses in the fall for anyone who wants to walk the building first.
The programs cover a lot of ground. A sample of what is available:
| Program | Host school | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Center for Information Technology | Deep Run | Software, networking, and engineering |
| Center for Medical Sciences | Godwin | Biology, biotechnology, and health sciences |
| International Baccalaureate | Tucker and Henrico | The full IB diploma sequence |
| Advance College Academy | Tucker | An associate degree from J. Sargeant Reynolds alongside the diploma |
| Spanish Language and Global Citizenship | Tucker | Spanish immersion |
| Center for the Arts | Henrico | Visual, performing, and literary arts |
The three Advanced Career Education centers, at Hermitage, Highland Springs, and Virginia Randolph, work differently. Rather than applying to attend alongside a regular high school program, students go part-time for career and technical coursework in fields like automotive technology, culinary arts, and cybersecurity, and come away with a certification as well as a diploma.
So the zoned high school is a starting point rather than the whole story. A student in the Glen Allen zone with a strong eighth grade record and a real interest in medicine or software can apply to a program built for exactly that, without moving.
Glen Allen competes in the Virginia High School League, and between fall football Fridays, spring lacrosse, marching band, and the theater program, most students find something. Middle school athletics feed the high school programs, so a sixth grader who joins a team is usually still playing with several of the same teammates as a sophomore.
Deep Run Park is where the rest of it happens. Trails, sports courts, picnic shelters, and on a Saturday morning you will run into three people you know before you make it to your car.
If you are new to the area, the fastest ways in are usually these:
A school of 2,000 does not feel small and friendly on day one, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. What makes it work is picking one thing early, a team or the band, and letting the rest follow.
The West End has drawn interest for the same reasons for a long time. The schools have a strong reputation, the commute into downtown Richmond is manageable, and Short Pump Town Center puts most of what you need inside a ten minute drive. School quality also holds up home values in a way that shows over a decade rather than a year, which is a real consideration when you are buying a home you plan to stay in for a while.
Sadler Square sits inside these school zones. It is a community of 128 single-family homes on 33 acres in the Short Pump area of Glen Allen, with four floorplans and homes of roughly 3,200 square feet. Several plans offer a first-floor primary suite and flexible rooms that work as a home office, a guest suite, or a second living area, which is what makes these layouts adaptable to multigenerational living. You can see the community at Sadler Square in Short Pump, walk the floorplans at Sadler Square, or read our complete guide to new construction in Richmond if you are still getting oriented to the market.
Miller & Smith has been building in Virginia since 1964, with nearly 20,000 homes across more than 130 communities and over 500 awards for design and construction. Sadler Square is our first community in the Richmond market.
If you are narrowing down addresses right now, work through this list before you sign anything:
Come see the neighborhood for yourself
Reading about a school zone and standing in it are two different things. Come walk the models at Sadler Square, drive the route between the community and the schools, and see how the homes live. One Visit Can Change Everything.
Schedule your visit to Sadler Square in Short Pump today.
Henrico County Public Schools serves both Glen Allen and Short Pump. HCPS is one of Virginia’s larger divisions, with about 72 schools and program centers and close to 49,000 students. There are no separate town or city districts here, so every public school in the area falls under Henrico County.
Addresses in the Sadler Square area are currently listed as served by Rivers Edge Elementary School on Holman Ridge Road, which covers preschool through fifth grade. Assignments are subject to change, so confirm your specific address with Henrico County Public Schools before you buy.
Glen Allen High School is one of nine comprehensive high schools in Henrico County and is well regarded locally. It opened in 2010, enrolls a little over 2,000 students, offers a broad Advanced Placement catalog with both standard and advanced diploma tracks, and is the only Gold level LEED certified school building in the county. Anyone evaluating it should visit and talk to the counseling office about course pathways rather than relying on a rating.
Yes. Henrico County runs roughly a dozen high school specialty centers that accept students countywide by application, including the Center for Information Technology at Deep Run, the Center for Medical Sciences at Godwin, and International Baccalaureate programs at Tucker and Henrico High. Students apply during eighth grade, and applications typically open in November.
Use the school locator tool on the Henrico County Public Schools website and enter the exact address. Real estate listings and school rating sites pull from third-party boundary data that can lag behind district changes, so treat the district as the only authoritative source. School assignments are subject to change, and verifying directly before purchase is always worth the five minutes.