City Park Elementary School, Dalton GA

Original Research by School Decision on City Park Elementary School

City Park Elementary School is a regular public school serving grades PK through five in Dalton, a manufacturing and carpet-industry city in northwest Georgia. The school sits in a community with a strong Hispanic and Latino presence and a working-class profile; roughly nine in ten students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and about seven in ten students identify as Hispanic or Latino.

The school enrolls a mid-sized population for its grade band. The enrollment is distributed fairly evenly across grades, with slightly smaller cohorts in pre-K and second grade.

On state assessments in 2024-25, City Park's proficiency rates in both English language arts and math sit in the lower range. In third grade, proficiency in ELA and math each falls below the midpoint on the state scale; fourth-grade math sits near half, while fifth-grade performance improves somewhat but remains below the state middle. Science proficiency in fifth grade shows similar positioning. Across all tested grades, the school's overall proficiency index places it at the top quartile among the two districts in Whitfield County, meaning it is performing closer to the stronger side of its local peer group. However, proficiency data from prior years is not available to show whether these results represent a pattern or recent change.

The district recently adopted a new literacy curriculum, myView Literacy and myPerspectives, as the centerpiece of its "Dalton Reads!" initiative, with the goal of having all students reading proficiently by the end of fifth grade. This multi-year shift includes eight new literacy team positions across the district and directly affects classroom instruction in reading and writing. For families considering City Park, understanding how this curriculum change is rolling out in the lower grades may be worth a conversation with the school.

Dalton itself is growing modestly and actively reinvesting in its downtown core and residential neighborhoods, though most daily life requires a car outside the historic commercial district. Housing values in the area are below state average and considered affordable relative to household income. The city's economy has historically centered on floor-covering manufacturing but is now diversifying into solar and automotive production. The community is multicultural and working-class, with substantial immigrant and Latino populations woven into the civic and economic fabric.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 328%

School 28% · District 37% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 448%

School 48% · District 47% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 535%

School 35% · District 40% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 323%

School 23% · District 32% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 430%

School 30% · District 36% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 39% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Science

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 34% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Social studies

Grades 3-883%

School 83% · district not reported

even with state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

This schoolDalton Public Schools, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.