Summary
Donelson Middle School is a 6–8 middle school in Nashville, TN, serving 434 students as part of Metro Nashville Public Schools, a district that ranks in the bottom quarter of Tennessee districts. Within that challenging context, Donelson is persistently below average: its 2025–26 state rank places it in the 17th percentile, up slightly from the 11th percentile the year before, but still firmly in the bottom quarter of Tennessee middle schools. The school has never ranked above the 20th percentile in the past decade, making a sustained breakthrough look elusive.
Academically, the biggest red flag is math: just 9.9% of Donelson students are proficient, compared to 32.4% for the district and 43.0% for the state. That is the lowest rate among nearby middle schools, including East Nashville Middle (11.9%), Two Rivers Middle (17.6%), and Isaac Litton Middle (18.2%). ELA proficiency is similarly low at 17.2%, and it falls sharply by grade: 27.7% in 6th grade, 17.2% in 7th, and just 8.0% in 8th. The one bright spot, Integrated Math I, looks strong at 41.2% but is actually far below the district’s 8th-grade average of 73.8% — meaning even Donelson’s advanced students trail their peers elsewhere.
There are some encouraging signs. Chronic absenteeism has dropped from 39.6% in 2021–22 to 22.2% in 2024–25, near the district average, and the school posted big gains in Science and Social Studies. However, math and ELA scores stayed flat. Spending is high at $18,518 per student, more than Meigs Middle School — the state’s #1-ranked school, just a few miles away with 94.2% math proficiency — yet outcomes remain far apart. Donelson does serve some subgroups relatively well, including ELL and special education students, but its core challenge remains moving basic math and reading proficiency out of single digits and the low teens.
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