Shiver Elementary School, Pelham GA

Original Research by School Decision on Shiver Elementary School

Shiver Elementary School serves prekindergarten through eighth grade in Pelham, a small southwest Georgia town rooted in agriculture and community tradition. The school sits on Georgia Highway 93 North and is one of four remaining elementary schools in Grady County after the district's 2024 closure of Northside Elementary.

The school draws about three-fifths of its students from families qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting economic conditions in the surrounding rural area. White students make up a clear majority of enrollment, with Hispanic and Black students each representing smaller but meaningful shares. The student body is stable in size for a rural K-8, with enrollment spread across ten grade levels rather than concentrated in a narrow band.

Academic performance shows a mixed picture across tested grades and subjects. In math, results vary substantially by grade. Third and seventh graders show solid proficiency rates, while eighth graders are noticeably stronger. Fifth and sixth graders score lower in math, with sixth grade particularly soft. English language arts proficiency is weaker across the board. Third grade shows a more respectable rate, but fourth through eighth grades all fall into the low-to-moderate range, with eighth-grade ELA showing the poorest results among all tested grades and subjects. Science proficiency in fifth grade sits just under half of students; eighth-grade science is also below that benchmark. Eighth-grade social studies is the lowest-performing subject result on file. A parent may want to look into what supports the school offers in upper-middle grades, where performance drops off, and in language arts, where achievement lags behind math schoolwide.

The Grady County School District received Cognia accreditation as a whole in December 2025, which provides assurance of institutional quality across the system's schools. The 2024 rezoning following Northside's closure brought reassigned students to Shiver and three other elementary schools across the county, which means the school absorbed enrollment shifts as part of district consolidation. This is the context in which current performance occurred.

Pelham itself is a quiet agricultural community of small scale, centered on a historic downtown along the rail corridor where the library and weekly Jamboree anchor civic life. Housing is affordable relative to state and national medians, and the economy depends on a correctional facility, small manufacturing, food processing, and farm-related employment. The town has experienced slow population decline rather than growth, and real estate moves slowly. For families in the area, Shiver offers local access without the long drives to consolidated district facilities elsewhere, though the academic profile suggests that parents evaluating the school should have direct conversations with staff about literacy instruction and middle-grade support.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 362%

School 62% · District 39% · ▲ 23 pts above district

▲ 22 pts above state median

Grade 465%

School 65% · District 45% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 20 pts above state median

Grade 549%

School 49% · District 41% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median

Grade 643%

School 43% · District 37% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median

Grade 762%

School 62% · District 45% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 28 pts above state median

Grade 875%

School 75% · District 48% · ▲ 27 pts above district

▲ 33 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 347%

School 47% · District 29% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 16 pts above state median

Grade 435%

School 35% · District 28% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 1 pts above state median

Grade 537%

School 37% · District 35% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median

Grade 633%

School 33% · District 29% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median

Grade 734%

School 34% · District 26% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median

Grade 828%

School 28% · District 32% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median

Science

Grade 549%

School 49% · District 34% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median

Grade 838%

School 38% · District 22% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median

Social studies

Grade 827%

School 27% · District 22% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▼ 4 pts below state median

This schoolGrady County, 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.