Best Public Schools in Ailey, GA

Montgomery County Elementary School is the only school serving the city of Ailey, Georgia, educating students from Pre-K through 5th grade within the Montgomery County school district.

This single elementary school serves a student body where 100% of families qualify for free or reduced lunch, reflecting a high-poverty community. The school has a favorable student-teacher ratio of 12.1:1 and spends $17,242 per student annually. Academically, the school shows a concerning pattern in mathematics: proficiency drops dramatically as students advance, from 46.9% in 3rd grade to 38.9% in 4th grade and just 23.7% in 5th grade. This creates a widening gap with state averages, as 3rd graders nearly match the state (46.9% vs. 48.3%) but 5th graders trail by more than 20 percentage points. Science performance improved significantly year-over-year, jumping from 27.1% to 37.3% proficiency, though it still lags the state average of 44.2%. The most recent available English Language Arts data (from the prior year) shows proficiency rates between 20.4% and 24.1%, well below state averages of roughly 35-43%. Current-year ELA scores are not yet available and will be released in December.

The school's state ranking has been volatile, moving from 721st (2023-2024) to 883rd (2024-2025) and back to 724th (2025-2026), currently placing it in the 41st percentile with a 2-star rating. Chronic absenteeism stands at 14.0%, which is better than the state average of 17.7% despite the high-poverty population. The district itself ranks 104th out of 201 districts in Georgia. Notably, the school's test scores exactly match the district's scores, which is expected since this is the only school serving these grade levels in the district. While the school has substantial resources and a strong student-teacher ratio, these advantages have not yet translated into competitive outcomes in upper elementary grades, particularly in math and ELA, suggesting a need for targeted interventions as students progress through the grade levels.