Summary:
There is only one middle school in Decatur, Tennessee — Meigs Middle School — which serves grades 6 through 8 and enrolls 406 students, and it is part of the lower-ranked Meigs County Schools district.
For parents considering this school, the most important story is a recent decline. Meigs Middle School dropped from 244th place (58th percentile, 3 stars) in 2024–2025 to 342nd (42nd percentile, 2 stars) in 2025–2026 — a fall of nearly 100 spots in one year. Proficiency scores went down in every subject: math fell from 42.8% to 35.7%, ELA from 33.1% to 31.4%, science from 42.7% to 40.4%, and social studies from 44.3% to 39.0%. Meanwhile, state averages rose in all four subjects, so the school is losing ground relative to the rest of Tennessee. The biggest overall weakness is social studies, where the school’s 39.0% proficiency rate trails the state’s 51.4% by 12.4 points. Seventh grade is particularly challenging, with large gaps in every subject — science (30.6% vs. 47.8%), social studies (39.6% vs. 56.0%), math (29.4% vs. 39.2%), and ELA (27.1% vs. 35.9%).
There are bright spots worth noting. Eighth graders at Meigs Middle outperform the state in both math (46.6% vs. 38.3%) and science (47.9% vs. 44.3%), suggesting a strong cohort or effective instruction in later middle school. Chronic absenteeism is 13.7%, better than the state’s 18.3% but higher than the district’s 8.9%, and addressing that gap may help improve achievement. Per-student spending is $11,624, though no student-teacher ratio or free/reduced lunch data is available, so parents should seek additional local context. Despite the district being a 1-star system, the school itself is a 2-star institution with proven strengths in 8th grade math and science — indicating that solid outcomes are possible here, even if the overall trend needs attention.
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