Dickson County Schools

Dickson County Schools is a Tennessee district with 16 schools serving roughly 7,774 students across elementary, middle, high, and alternative campuses, and it performs above the state average in several key areas.

Parents will find several standout schools to consider. Burns Middle School is the district’s top-ranked school, sitting in the 86th percentile with strong math, science, and social studies scores, plus low chronic absenteeism. Stuart Burns Elementary School leads all elementary schools in math and science and ranks in the 84th percentile. The Discovery School has the highest elementary ELA proficiency, while Creek Wood High School boasts a 97% graduation rate and the district’s lowest dropout rate. Dickson County High School is the largest school and posts the strongest English II and Biology I scores in the district. Overall, the district beats Tennessee averages in graduation rate, chronic absenteeism, science, social studies, and several end-of-course exams.

However, there are clear pressure points. Algebra I proficiency at both high schools is strikingly low—around 17–19% versus a 32% state average—even though middle school students taking Algebra I score above 82%. Middle school math and ELA also fall below state averages, and elementary proficiency gaps are wide: Stuart Burns and Discovery top the charts while Dickson Elementary School and White Bluff Elementary School lag significantly. Alternative schools like New Directions Academy have very high chronic absenteeism and low proficiency. Notably, spending does not clearly predict outcomes—Burns Middle spends modestly yet performs best, while Dickson Elementary spends more but ranks lower. The key takeaway is that Dickson County has excellent pockets of success, but scaling that excellence to struggling schools, especially in math and literacy, remains the central challenge.