Brighten Academy

Brighten Academy, a mid-tier elementary school in Douglasville, Georgia, one of the schools within Douglas County, serves 812 students, covering grades K through 8. That puts it 34% bigger than the typical public school in Georgia, which averages around 605 students.

Within Douglas County, which oversees 35 schools and 25,521 students, Brighten Academy is one campus in the system.

On the student-mix side, Brighten Academy lists that 72% of the student body identifies as Black; the rest breaks down as 11% White, 9% Hispanic, 6% multiracial. That is considerably more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 50%.

In terms of school funding signals, The school employs 48 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 17.1:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 13.3:1 average. Around 35% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, often used as a Title I proxy. That share is below Douglas County's rate of about 71%.

With demographic context factored in, On a poverty-adjusted basis, Brighten Academy sits in the bottom 10% statewide. Predicted proficiency from the FRL regression is roughly 59.3%; actual is 42.8%, a gap of -16.5 points.

Zooming out to the county, census data for Douglas County shows median household earnings sit near $82,984, 31% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 9%. In all, Douglas County runs 37 public schools (combined enrollment of about 26,121 students), of which Brighten Academy is one.

Douglas County High School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 1.0 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Brighten Academy. Among the 8 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Brighten Academy ranks 1st on composite proficiency, above the local average of 26.8%.

Brighten Academy operates from a bedroom-community location. As a public charter, Brighten Academy runs on public funding but with greater curricular and operational autonomy than a typical district school.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Brighten Academy has rose 4%, going from 779 students in 2018 to 812 in 2025. The White share of enrollment decreased from 30% to 11% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 19.4:1 in 2018 to 17.1:1 today.

On the community side, the feed for Brighten Academy typically covers school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. Members of the school community can share what they know.