Murphey Candler Elementary School

As a low-enrollment elementary campus in Lithonia, Georgia, Murphey Candler Elementary School works with 512 students from grades pre-K through 5, run under DeKalb County.

DeKalb County runs 131 schools in total, collectively educating 92,088 students. Murphey Candler Elementary School is one of those campuses.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Murphey Candler Elementary School logs that nearly all students (92%) are Black. Beyond that, the school shows 4% Hispanic, 3% multiracial. That is meaningfully more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 51%.

On the income-and-resources front, On paper, Murphey Candler Elementary School has 39 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 13.1:1. That tracks the state average closely. Roughly 100% of students at Murphey Candler Elementary School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, DeKalb County runs at roughly 77%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully above the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, Murphey Candler Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 25.7%, the actual is 18.8%, a residual of -6.9 points.

Around the school, ACS estimates for DeKalb County put the typical household earns roughly $80,644 per year, 47% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Murphey Candler Elementary School is one of 154 public schools in DeKalb County (combined enrollment of about 102,960 students).

Arabia Mountain High School - Academy of Engineering- Medic is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.2 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Murphey Candler Elementary School ranks 4th on composite proficiency, beneath the local average of 21.1%.

The school occupies a countryside site.

Over the past 7-year window. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Murphey Candler Elementary School has declined 11%, going from 573 students in 2018 to 512 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio narrowed from 15.1:1 in 2018 to 13.1:1 today.

On allk12, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Parents, students, alumni, and staff are welcome to weigh in.