1
What's something Columbia Middle School does better than most schools?
Community prompt from u/allk12. Replies below.
Enrollment
571
Middle
DISTRICT 857 · STATE 763
SCHOOL COMMUNITY·DEKALB COUNTY·NCES 130174002480
Columbia Middle School
3001 Columbia Dr, Decatur, GA 30034 · (678) 875-0502 · DeKalb County
GRADES 06–08MIDDLE21-SUBURBTITLE IREGULAR SCHOOL571 STUDENTS
F
allk12 Grade
Scored higher than 3% of Georgia public middle schools
- FTest scores Share of students meeting the state standard in reading, math, and other tested subjects, 2023-24 and 2024-25.
- DBeats expectations How far test scores land above or below what the share of low-income students predicts for a school in this state.
- C-Three-year trend Change in reading and math proficiency over the last three test years.
Grades compare a school only with schools in the same state, because every state gives its own test. How grades work · Top-graded Georgia public middle schools
Student : Teacher
11.8:1
49 FTE teachers
DISTRICT 14.2:1 · STATE 14.1:1
Free / Reduced Lunch
100%
571 students
DISTRICT 82% · STATE 74%
Community
6
0 members
Enrollment and student:teacher ratio compared against other middle schools. Free/Reduced Lunch and demographics compared against all schools.
Enrollment by grade, 2024-25
| Grade | Students | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 182 | 32% |
| Grade 7 | 206 | 36% |
| Grade 8 | 183 | 32% |
Student demographics
19%Diversity index
The chance that two students picked at random belong to different racial or ethnic groups.
DISTRICT 63% · STATE 71% · US 70%
Student head counts by race/ethnicity from federal NCES enrollment data. District, state, and US figures are each group's share of all public school students in that area (US excludes territories). Very small groups may be suppressed in the source, so categories do not always sum exactly to total enrollment.
Gender split
School pathway
Students here typically continue to
Columbia Middle School→Columbia High School
Feeds from
Based on published attendance-zone data from DeKalb County. Zones change; confirm enrollment with the district.
Test scores
Georgia Milestones 2024-25 . % Proficient or DistinguishedEnglish Language Arts
17.7%
GA avg 40.1% . -0.5pp since 2021
Math
11.5%
GA avg 44.6% . +2.4pp since 2021
What this means: On the Georgia Milestones, Georgia's statewide test, about 18 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level and about 11 of 100 do math at grade level. Across all Georgia schools, those numbers are about 40 and 45. Reading and writing scores have held steady since 2021, while math scores are up about 2 points.
Georgia Milestones results by year
| School year | English Language Arts | Math |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 17.7% | 11.5% |
| 2023-24 | 19.6% | 7.4% |
| 2022-23 | 19.9% | 7.3% |
| 2021-22 | 18.3% | 9.1% |
% Proficient or Distinguished, all students and all tested grades.
Source: Georgia Milestones. All students, all grades. See all years and grades →
BeatsExpectations
Demographically-adjusted score · methodologyTier
AS EXPECTED
Performing as predicted given the school's student profile
Actual proficiency
12.1%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
25.7%
based on GA schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-13.6pp
below demographic expectation
What this means: About 12% of students here test proficient in math and reading, compared with the roughly 26% typical for Georgia schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations measures results against demographically similar schools rather than by raw scores, and this school falls within the typical range, neither among Georgia's top nor bottom 10%.
BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual. How this is calculated →
Schools most like Columbia Middle School
Columbia Middle School's state test result (12.1% proficient) is higher than 2 of the 5 schools below with a result.
| School | Students | Low-income | Proficient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Columbia Middle School this school | 571 | 100.0% | 12.1% |
| Chapel Hill Middle School Decatur | 614 | 100.0% | 23.9% |
| Ralph Bunche Middle School Atlanta | 651 | 100.0% | 19.2% |
| Rothschild Leadership Academy School Columbus | 498 | 100.0% | 8.0% |
| Miller Grove Middle School Decatur | 625 | 100.0% | 12.7% |
| Richmond Hill Middle School Augusta | 667 | 100.0% | 6.3% |
Matched among Georgia middle schools on enrollment, the share of students from low-income families (eligible for free or reduced-price lunch), and racial and ethnic makeup. Proficient is the average share of students meeting the state standard across all of the school's state tests in 2023-24 and 2024-25, the same combined score our test-score rankings use. Online schools and schools serving specialized populations are not matched.
Where Columbia Middle School ranks
Among middle schools| Measure | This school | In Georgia | In DeKalb County |
|---|---|---|---|
| State test proficiency ranked highest first | 12.1% | #446 of 470 | #22 of 23 |
| Math proficiency ranked highest first | 11.5% | #444 of 474 ▲ 9 | #20 of 23 ▲ 2 |
| Reading proficiency ranked highest first | 17.7% | #429 of 474 ▼ 4 | #17 of 23 ▲ 4 |
| 3-year test score change ranked biggest gain first | +0.9pp | #367 of 465 | #19 of 23 |
| Enrollment ranked largest first | 571 | #337 of 487 | #20 of 23 |
| Students per teacher ranked fewest first | 11.8:1 | #40 of 471 | #1 of 23 |
| Diversity index ranked most diverse first | 19.0% | #441 of 471 | #18 of 23 |
| Free and reduced lunch ranked highest share first | 100% | #54 of 479 | #8 of 23 |
| Enrollment change since 2017-18 ranked steepest decline first | -36.6% | #8 of 305 | #1 of 13 |
Ranked against other public middle schools. Online schools are left out of every list, and test-score lists leave out schools that serve specialized populations. Each rank links to the full list. Arrows under a test-score rank show places moved since the prior test year, among schools tested both years.
4-year change
SY 2020-21 vs SY 2024-25Enrollment
571
-238 (-29%) vs 2020
-44% since 2010-11, when it was 1,028
Student : Teacher
11.8:1
was 14.4:1
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
Enrollment and staffing by year
| School year | Students | Teachers (FTE) | Students per teacher | Free and reduced lunch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 571 | 48.5 | 11.8:1 | 100% (571) |
| 2023-24 | 564 | 46.5 | 12.1:1 | 100% (564) |
| 2022-23 | 604 | 48 | 12.6:1 | 100% (604) |
| 2020-21 | 809 | 56 | 14.4:1 | 99% (802) |
| 2017-18 | 900 | 64.5 | 13.9:1 | 100% (900) |
| 2015-16 | 913 | 61 | 15.0:1 | 99% (908) |
| 2010-11 | 1,028 | 69 | 14.9:1 | 85% (874) |
Source: NCES Common Core of Data. Rows are the federal collections on file for Columbia Middle School.
Since 2017-18: students down 37% (900 to 571); teachers down 25% (64.5 to 48.5).
About Columbia Middle School
Students in Decatur, Georgia, attend Columbia Middle School, a small middle-grades school. The school teaches grades 6 through 8 and enrolls 571 students. The school is 25% below the average for middle schools in Georgia.
Besides Columbia Middle School, DeKalb County runs 130 other schools. The district enrolls 92,088 students.
The share of students at Columbia Middle School who are Black is 90%. Other groups include 5% Hispanic and 2% multiracial. By comparison, DeKalb County residents are about 51% Black. On a 0 to 100 scale, the school's diversity index is 19, compared with 70 nationally.
The school has 48.5 full-time-equivalent teachers and a ratio of 11.8 students per teacher. Middle schools in Georgia have an average ratio of 14.1:1. The school reported 100% of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch in 2024-25. For comparison, public schools in DeKalb County average 77%.
On the allk12 Grade, Columbia Middle School lands at F, ahead of 3% of Georgia public middle schools.
Columbia Middle School posts an average proficiency rate across its state test results of 12.1%, compared with a predicted 25.7%. It is not in the top or bottom 10% of Georgia schools on BeatsExpectations.
In the surrounding county, DeKalb County, the median household earns about $80,644 a year, 47% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and about 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Counting Columbia Middle School, DeKalb County has 154 public schools.
Bob Mathis Elementary School is about 0.9 miles from Columbia Middle School, the shortest distance to any other public school. The five-mile area around Columbia Middle School holds at least 8 other public schools. Nearby schools with test data average 18.8% proficiency; Columbia Middle School posts 12.1%.
In the federal locale system, Columbia Middle School is coded Suburb: Large, for schools in a suburban area outside a principal city, within an urbanized area with a population of 250,000 or more.
In 2020-21, Columbia Middle School enrolled 809 students. By 2024-25, that number had fallen to 571. There were fewer students per teacher in 2024-25 (11.8:1) than in 2020-21 (14.4:1).
People can post here about homework, tutoring, and testing dates and other school topics. Members of the school community can share what they know.
DeKalb County at a glance
View full county profilePopulation
765,351
Census ACS
Median income
$80,644
Household, ACS
Bachelor's+
47%
Adults 25+
Poverty rate
10%
Below federal line
Schools in county
154
102,960 students
Quick facts
Related schools
Other schools in DeKalb County
- Lakeside High SchoolHigh · 2,234 students
- Dunwoody High SchoolHigh · 2,012 students
- Chamblee High SchoolHigh · 1,867 students
- Cross Keys High SchoolHigh · 1,748 students
- Sequoyah Middle SchoolMiddle · 1,713 students
- Tucker High SchoolHigh · 1,614 students
Other schools in Decatur
- Decatur High SchoolHigh · 1,901 students
- Beacon Hill Middle SchoolMiddle · 1,285 students
- Southwest DeKalb High SchoolHigh · 1,237 students
- Druid Hills Middle SchoolMiddle · 985 students
- Columbia High SchoolHigh · 877 students
- Towers High SchoolHigh · 876 students
Other Columbia Middle schools
10 other US public schools in 8 states are named Columbia Middle. Columbia Middle School is the 7th largest of the 11.
- Columbia Middle SchoolGrovetown, GA · 903 students
- Columbia Middle SchoolMOSES LAKE, WA · 875 students
- Columbia MiddleAdelanto, CA · 754 students
- Columbia MiddleSunnyvale, CA · 697 students
- Columbia Middle SchoolAURORA, CO · 636 students
Nearby schools
- Bob Mathis Elementary School0.9 mi · 368
- DeKalb Regional Youth Detention Center1.3 mi · 11
- Oak View Elementary1.5 mi · 685
- Columbia Elementary School1.6 mi · 364
- Southwest DeKalb High School1.7 mi · 1,237
- Rainbow Elementary School1.7 mi · 337
Frequently asked questions
About Columbia Middle SchoolHow many students attend Columbia Middle School?
Columbia Middle School enrolls approximately 571 students in grades 06-08.
What grades does Columbia Middle School serve?
Columbia Middle School serves grades 06-08.
What is the student-teacher ratio at Columbia Middle School?
The student-to-teacher ratio at Columbia Middle School is approximately 11.8:1 (49 FTE teachers).
What is the racial breakdown of students at Columbia Middle School?
At Columbia Middle School, the student body is approximately 1% White, 5% Hispanic, 90% Black, 1% Asian, 2% Two or more.
What district is Columbia Middle School in?
Columbia Middle School is part of DeKalb County.
Data sourceSchool profile facts are sourced from the NCES. Community content is posted by allk12 members.