Summary:
Zip code 30823 (Stapleton, Georgia) is home to just one middle school, Jefferson County Middle School, which serves grades 6-8 with 440 students in the Jefferson County district.
This school serves a student body where 100% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, making it a high-poverty school. Academically, proficiency rates trail state averages by roughly 20-25 percentage points across all subjects. In the most recent year, 6th grade math proficiency was 26.8% (state: 40.7%), 7th grade math was 19.5% (state: 42.0%), and 8th grade math was 22.0% (state: 46.3%). Science proficiency was just 10.6% (state: 29.7%), and social studies was 17.7% (state: 40.2%). The school has ranked in the bottom 20% of Georgia middle schools for three consecutive years, though its percentile ranking has improved from 12th to 20th over that period.
There are encouraging signs of progress. Mathematics proficiency improved in every grade from the prior year, with 7th grade jumping 6.8 points and 6th grade gaining 4.8 points. Social studies proficiency nearly doubled from 9.0% to 17.7%. However, science scores declined from 15.1% to 10.6%, and chronic absenteeism stands at 21.1% — well above the state average of 17.7%. The school spends $13,995 per student, well above typical levels, and maintains a favorable student-teacher ratio of 12.2:1. Despite this investment, outcomes remain roughly half the state average, a pattern often seen in high-poverty schools where attendance and other non-academic challenges play a significant role. Since this is the district's only middle school, its scores are identical to district averages, meaning there are no other local middle schools for comparison.
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