The top reported proficiency rate is 18% in Science. The lowest is 12% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Main Elementary School
Main Elementary School serves pre-kindergarten through sixth grade in Rome, Georgia. The school sits at the lower end of academic performance for Floyd County, with proficiency rates across tested grades and subjects consistently in the single digits to low double digits. In English Language Arts, third grade reached just above ten percent proficiency while fourth grade fell to below seven percent. Fifth grade was the highest-performing ELA grade at just under eighteen percent. Math proficiency was similarly low, with fifth grade showing the weakest performance at just above eleven percent. Science, tested only in fifth grade, matched that grade's performance at just under eighteen percent. Overall proficiency across all tested areas and grades sits well below the midpoint of other districts in Floyd County, placing the school in the bottom quartile of the county comparison set.
The student body is predominantly Black, with a substantial portion of Hispanic students and smaller populations of white students and students of multiple races. Nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting acute economic need. Enrollment is small, sitting at roughly the midpoint for an elementary school of this grade span, with the larger grades (fourth and sixth) slightly more populated than younger ones.
A parent considering Main Elementary should understand the acute academic challenge here. The proficiency figures represent a population of students working substantially below grade-level expectations across reading, writing, and mathematics. This is not a school with a specialized mission that explains lower testing; it is a regular public school serving a neighborhood population in economic hardship. The data available does not include chronic absenteeism, special education enrollment, English learner identification, or other diagnostic metrics that could help explain whether gaps are driven by attendance, language acquisition, or other factors, so a parent may want to look into these dimensions directly with the school.
The district context matters significantly. Rome City Schools has launched a multi-year literacy initiative centered on structured literacy aligned to the Science of Reading, reaching elementary schools in the current school year. This is a deliberate, research-based instructional shift that should affect how reading is taught at Main. The district also rolled out new state mathematics standards in the previous cycle, and some Rome schools have shown meaningful gains as a result. These initiatives are district-wide, not school-specific, but they represent genuine instructional change that can take multiple years to affect test outcomes. A family enrolling at Main should ask how the school is implementing the new ELA curriculum and what support structures exist for students working significantly below grade level.
The broader economic reality of Rome itself offers some context. The city is revitalizing its downtown and positioning itself as an affordable bedroom community to Atlanta, with active development along the riverfront and continued investment in civic amenities. Housing is affordable compared to the state and nation. However, the district faces a material tax headache: voters rejected a proposed sales tax last fall that would have reduced property tax bills substantially, leaving property owners in Rome paying higher taxes than in surrounding counties. The district is also financing a new middle school with borrowing that will require four full sales-tax referendums to repay, and if those referendums fail, property taxes for Rome homeowners will rise significantly. A family moving into Rome should factor this into their long-term housing cost calculus.
Main Elementary is not a destination school, and the test results do not suggest a pathway to strong academic outcomes without intensive intervention. Families should investigate the school's tutoring, intervention, and special services capacity directly, understand how the new literacy curriculum is being rolled out in practice, and assess whether their child's needs can be met. The school is part of a district undertaking real instructional reform, but that reform is still early, and the baseline proficiency is very low.
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