Summary:
Zip code 31707 in Albany, Georgia, is home to one middle school, Merry Acres Middle School, which serves grades 6 through 8 within the Dougherty County school district.
Merry Acres Middle School serves a student body where 100% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, reflecting a high-poverty community. The school has a favorable student-teacher ratio of 13.6 and spends $15,601 per student, which is notably above the national average. Despite this investment, the school has received a 1-star rating for three consecutive years, placing it in the bottom 20% of Georgia middle schools. Its state ranking has fluctuated slightly, moving from 485th out of 588 schools in 2023–2024, to 465th out of 584 in 2024–2025, and back down to 482nd out of 578 in 2025–2026.
Academically, the school shows a mixed picture. The most encouraging trend is in mathematics, where 6th grade proficiency jumped from 15.8% to 20.2% and 7th grade proficiency nearly doubled from 8.9% to 17.6% year-over-year. However, 8th grade performance declined sharply, with math dropping 12.1 points to 17.8% and social studies falling 13.3 points to just 12.2% proficiency—28 points below the state average. Science proficiency also dipped to 17.0%. Chronic absenteeism stands at 22.1%, which is above the state rate of 17.7% but slightly better than the district's 24.4%. The school consistently trails district averages across most subjects, with the largest gaps in 8th grade social studies and 7th grade math. English Language Arts (ELA) scores have not yet been released for 2025–2026 and will be available in December, so no conclusions should be drawn from their absence. Overall, while lower-grade math shows promise, targeted intervention for 8th grade students and addressing chronic absenteeism appear to be critical areas of focus for this school.
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