Centennial Arts Academy, Gainesville GA

Original Research by School Decision on Centennial Arts Academy

Centennial Arts Academy serves students from pre-K through fifth grade in Gainesville, a county seat in northeast Georgia anchored by healthcare, poultry processing, automotive manufacturing, and food production. The school sits in a city on strong growth, with major residential and mixed-use development reshaping downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. It is part of Gainesville City Schools, a small district separate from the larger Hall County system.

The school enrolls roughly a medium-sized group for its grade band, with a student body that is majority Hispanic and economically stretched, with a substantial share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The enrollment also includes a significant Black student population and smaller Asian and multiracial cohorts. No data was available on students with individualized education plans or English learners, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about its support for those populations.

On state assessments administered in the most recent school year, proficiency across math, English language arts, and science sits below the midpoint within Hall County. In math, the proficiency rate rises slightly from third to fifth grade. In ELA, the gap is wider, with third grade notably lower than fourth and fifth. Fifth-grade science proficiency sits just above the math cohort. Across tested subjects and grades, Centennial's overall proficiency index places it above the midpoint among the two districts in Hall County, though proficiency remains modest in absolute terms. The school has only one prior year of state data available, so trend direction cannot be assessed; a parent interested in growth trajectory may want to check in with the school about how recent work is translating to student performance in fall 2025 and beyond.

The school's name reflects an arts focus, though no details about specific arts programming, curriculum depth, or how arts integrate across the day were available in the data. A parent drawn to arts-centered learning should ask Centennial directly about what that commitment looks like in practice—whether it is embedded in core instruction, offered as a distinct strand or class, or present in after-school and enrichment activities.

Gainesville itself is walkable in its historic downtown core and Midtown corridor, with a pedestrian bridge, greenways, and a mix of restored and new residential, retail, and restaurant space. The wider city is car-dependent outside the center. Housing costs are moderate relative to the Southeast and the nation, though rents have risen in the past year. The area has multiple top employers anchored by a major regional health system, and the Gainesville-Hall metro is among the fastest-growing in the country. For families in the school's attendance zone, Centennial is the neighborhood elementary school; for those weighing Gainesville City Schools as a district choice, it offers the possibility of an arts-informed early-grades experience in a city with real walkability at its core.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 323%

School 23% · District 30% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 429%

School 29% · District 37% · ▼ 8 pts below district

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

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 31% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 6 pts below state median · even with county median

English language arts

Grade 316%

School 16% · District 22% · ▼ 6 pts below district

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

Grade 420%

School 20% · District 26% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 528%

School 28% · District 30% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · even with county median

Science

Grade 530%

School 30% · District 27% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Social studies

Grades 3-874%

School 74% · district not reported

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

This schoolGainesville City, 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.