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DeKalb County


At a glance
136thof 201 Georgia districts▼ 5
Better than 32% of Georgia districts
1701 Mountain Industrial Blvd
Stone Mountain, GA 30083
·(678) 676-1200·All Georgia district rankings →
Statewide performance 2018–2026
2026: better than 32.3% of districts
129
Schools
91,752
Students
9
5-star schools
Top rankedWadsworth Magnet School for High Achievers1st of 578 Georgia middle schools
Biggest riser
Idlewood Elementary School up 301 spots statewide this year
Smallest classes
Elizabeth Andrews High School 5.2 students per teacher
SchoolDigger ratings
4★
3★
2★
1★
0★
4 schools without a SchoolDigger rating (too few tested students)
Summary:

DeKalb County Schools serve approximately 129 schools—including 82 elementary, 22 middle, 23 high, and 2 alternative schools—across a diverse suburban and urban area east of Atlanta, with the district ranking in the lower half of Georgia districts overall but containing some of the state’s very best schools.

For parents, the standout message is that school choice matters enormously here. The district’s magnet and theme schools are exceptional: Wadsworth Magnet School for High Achievers ranks #1 among all Georgia middle schools for three straight years, with near-100% proficiency in math and just 1.2% chronic absenteeism, despite 61% of students qualifying for free/reduced lunch. Dekalb Early College Academy ranks 4th among high schools with a 100% graduation rate, and DeKalb School of the Arts ranks 24th with 100% graduation. At the elementary level, Austin Elementary School sits in the 96th percentile, and Robert Shaw Theme School—with 100% poverty—hits the 94th percentile. Meanwhile, traditional zoned schools vary widely: Chamblee High School and Lakeside High School outperform the district average, while Cross Keys High School and Elizabeth Andrews High School struggle with graduation rates below 74% and high dropout rates.

The biggest red flag is chronic absenteeism: the district rate of 26.7% far exceeds the state’s 17.7%, and schools above 40% absenteeism—like Martin Luther King- Junior High School and Stone Mountain High School—consistently land in the bottom quartile. On the positive side, Clarkston High School improved from the 15th to 53rd percentile in two years, and several high-poverty schools like Wynbrooke Elementary School and Edward L. Bouie- Senior Elementary School beat the odds. Per-student spending shows no clear link to outcomes—some of the lowest-spending schools outperform the highest-spending ones. For parents, the takeaway is to research individual schools carefully, as the district’s overall ranking hides a wide spectrum from top-1% magnets to bottom-1% elementary schools like Stoneview Elementary School.

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Ranking:
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Districts nearby

SchoolDigger data sources: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Georgia Department of Education.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS: Not all boundaries are included. We make every effort to ensure that boundaries are up-to-date. But it's important to note that these are approximations and are for general informational purposes only. To verify legal descriptions of boundaries or school locations, contact your local tax assessor's office and/or school district.





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