Summary:
Zip code 30223 in Griffin, Georgia, is home to just one high school, AZ Kelsey Academy, a small alternative school serving grades 9–12 within the Griffin-Spalding County School District.
With only 47 students, AZ Kelsey Academy is an exceptionally small school that serves a highly economically disadvantaged population—nearly 98% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. The school invests heavily in its students, spending about $80,875 per pupil annually and maintaining a very low student-to-teacher ratio of 6.6:1. This intensive resource model appears to be paying off in student persistence. The school's graduation rate for 2024-2025 is 91.7%, which beats both the district average of 90.9% and the state average of 87.2%. Even more striking is the turnaround in dropout rates: the school went from a 26.3% dropout rate in 2017-2018 to a rate below the district's 1.4% in 2024-2025—a dramatic improvement of roughly 25 percentage points.
However, academic performance on standardized tests remains a challenge. On the U.S. History Milestones assessment, only 16.7% of students scored proficient, compared to 20.6% in the district and 38.6% statewide. Chronic absenteeism is also a concern, with 27.5% of students missing school regularly—higher than the district's 24.0% and the state's 17.7%. Given the school's small size, this translates to about 13 students, a manageable group for targeted intervention. The picture that emerges is of a specialized "last-chance" school focused on credit recovery and keeping at-risk students on track to graduate. While test scores lag, the school's success in graduating students at rates above the state average—despite serving one of the most high-poverty populations in Georgia—suggests it is effectively fulfilling its core mission of student recovery and persistence.
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