Summary:
Zip code 30058 in Lithonia, Georgia, is home to two public high schools—Lithonia High School and Miller Grove High School—serving roughly 2,620 students in grades 9-12 within the DeKalb County School District, where every student at both schools qualifies for free or reduced lunch.
These two schools are heading in very different directions. Lithonia High School is the clear standout this year, jumping an impressive 103 spots in state ranking—from 341st (1-star) to 238th (2-star)—and now sits near the state median. Its test scores surged across the board, with Biology proficiency climbing 15.2 points to 39.3% and Algebra I rising 9.8 points to 36.1%. By contrast, Miller Grove High School held steady at a 2-star rating but saw mixed results: Biology improved 12.3 points to 30.9%, while US History dropped 10.9 points to 25.1% and Algebra I slipped slightly to 32.1%. Lithonia now outperforms Miller Grove in all three tested subjects, despite Miller Grove spending $1,632 more per student and having a better student-teacher ratio (14.9:1 vs. 16.2:1).
Both schools share a critical weakness: chronic absenteeism. Lithonia's rate is 49.1% and Miller Grove's is 43.9%—roughly 2.5 to 2.8 times the state average of 17.7% and nearly double the district's 26.7%. This is especially concerning given the strong link between attendance and achievement. On the positive side, both schools beat the district's graduation rate of 81.4%, with Lithonia at 85.0% and Miller Grove at 83.5%, though both trail the state's 87.2%. While ELA scores are not yet available for this year, last year's American Literature results showed a 12.5-point gap favoring Miller Grove (29.7% vs. 17.2%), a metric worth watching when new data arrives in December. For parents, Lithonia's momentum is encouraging, but attendance remains the biggest hurdle for both schools.
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