Dove Creek Middle School, Statham GA

Original Research by School Decision on Dove Creek Middle School

Dove Creek Middle School is a newly built school serving Grades 6 through 8 in Statham, located in Oconee County. It opened as part of a capital expansion funded by the passage of ELOST VI in 2021, a sales-tax referendum that also built an Instructional Support Center and added district capacity to serve the rapid growth happening along the Highway 316 corridor between Atlanta and Athens. The school is a standard public middle school with no charter or magnet designation.

The student body is small to mid-sized for a middle school, with fairly balanced enrollment across each grade. The population is predominantly white, with smaller shares of Asian and Hispanic students and a very small black population. About one in seven students qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which is below the county and state average and suggests a relatively affluent family base, consistent with the new suburban home development across Statham and the surrounding area.

On state end-of-grade assessments in 2024-25, the school's performance is solid across subjects. In math, proficiency runs from the upper-to-mid range in Grade 6, improves through Grade 7, and reaches its strongest point in Grade 8. English language arts proficiency is consistent across Grades 6 and 7 but drops notably in Grade 8, suggesting that reading and writing demand increases as students advance and meet uneven readiness. Science proficiency in Grade 8 sits in the mid-range, while social studies proficiency in Grade 8 is among the school's strongest results. Overall, math appears to be a relative strength, and the eighth-grade social studies showing is the highest result the school reports. The ELA trend merits attention; parents may want to look into what support the school offers to eighth graders and how the school is addressing that dip in reading and writing performance.

Only one year of state assessment data is available, so it is not possible to assess whether these results represent consistent performance or a single snapshot. The school is too new and too small in the district context to generate comparison data with other county schools; Oconee County has a single school district encompassing its municipalities, and neighbor-comparison metrics are not applicable.

Statham itself is a car-dependent small city of roughly middle-income character, sitting where outer metro Atlanta growth meets older Georgia small-town fabric. Most residents commute out for work, though the presence of major logistics facilities like Uline's distribution center means some local employment exists. The housing market is active, with new subdivisions and mixed-use development sites under way, and home values are above the Georgia state benchmark, reflecting the suburban-growth trajectory. Families choosing this school are typically suburban commuters or logistics-sector workers with school-age children in or near the new residential areas that Dove Creek serves.

The Oconee County School District recently won voter approval in November 2025 for ELOST VII, a continuation of the sales-tax funding mechanism that will support a multi-year facility upgrade plan including HVAC work at the high schools and a new roof at one of them. The district also underwent a governance change in late 2024, shifting from an elected board chair to a self-selected one, which affects how parents can influence board leadership going forward. These are system-level facts that apply to all schools in the district, including this one.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 678%

School 78% · District 71% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 46 pts above state median

Grade 779%

School 79% · District 73% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 45 pts above state median

Grade 883%

School 83% · District 81% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 40 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 674%

School 74% · District 70% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 39 pts above state median

Grade 773%

School 73% · District 67% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 37 pts above state median

Grade 868%

School 68% · District 68%

▲ 33 pts above state median

Science

Grade 876%

School 76% · District 70% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 49 pts above state median

Social studies

Grade 883%

School 83% · District 78% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 52 pts above state median

This schoolOconee 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 6Lower-income43%Higher-income72%29 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income33%Higher-income77%44 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income59%Higher-income76%17 pp gap

Grades 3-8Lower-income47%Higher-income75%28 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income57%Higher-income84%27 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income29%Higher-income78%50 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income72%Higher-income78%6 pp gap

Grades 3-8Lower-income55%Higher-income80%25 pp gap