Summary:
The city of Thomson, Georgia, is home to 5 schools serving students from elementary through high school, all part of the McDuffie County school district. While the schools share some common challenges, such as high poverty levels and underperformance on standardized tests, a few standout schools demonstrate pockets of success that could be leveraged to drive improvement across the district.
Thomson-McDuffie Middle School stands out for its relatively strong performance on the Algebra I End of Course exam, with 47.7% proficiency in 2023-2024, outpacing the county and state averages. However, the school's overall performance on other subject area tests, such as English Language Arts and Mathematics, lags behind the state. In contrast, Norris Elementary School has the highest percentage of free/reduced lunch recipients at 93.75%, indicating a high-need student population, yet it outperformed the county and state averages on 5th grade English Language Arts and Mathematics tests in 2023-2024.
Across the district, the schools face significant challenges, with consistently low performance on the Milestones Assessments, where several schools score below 30% proficiency in various subject areas. The high poverty levels, as evidenced by the free/reduced lunch rates ranging from 89.15% to 93.75%, likely contribute to these academic struggles. While the spending per student varies from $8,312 to $10,481, the student-teacher ratios are relatively low, ranging from 11.2 to 15.6 students per teacher. Addressing these disparities and leveraging the bright spots, such as Norris Elementary's success, could be key to driving improvement and supporting student success in the Thomson, Georgia, school district.
Thank you for your feedback!