Waresboro Elementary School, Waycross GA

Original Research by School Decision on Waresboro Elementary School

Waresboro Elementary School serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Waycross, a small Southeast Georgia city built around its railroad heritage and proximity to the Okefenokee Swamp. The school enrolls roughly a mid-size population of students, about four in five of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting an economically challenged community. The student body is majority white, with meaningful shares of Black and Hispanic students, plus smaller numbers of other backgrounds.

State end-of-grade testing data from the most recent school year shows uneven proficiency across subjects. In math, students in fourth grade show proficiency just above the midpoint, while third grade sits a little below half and fifth grade substantially lower, near or below four in ten. The picture in reading and language arts is weaker: proficiency rates across third, fourth, and fifth grade all sit in the low to mid-thirties, well below half. In science, fifth grade proficiency sits just above half. The only older data available, from social studies over a decade ago, showed a much higher proficiency rate, but that assessment has since been replaced and those results are not comparable to current state tests, so they offer limited guidance on where the school stands now.

Only one year of state testing data is available, so trend information that might show whether proficiency is rising, falling, or stable cannot be drawn. Parents may want to inquire directly with the school about whether recent years show improvement or decline in these subject areas.

Waycross and Ware County Schools are in the midst of economic transition. The city has announced a major manufacturing facility expected to bring jobs and drive housing demand, but currently faces a substantial housing shortage. The Ware County School District recently completed a middle school building project funded through a voter-approved sales tax and has implemented a bell-to-bell personal electronic device ban across K-12, effective with the 2025-2026 school year. The district also raised school property tax millage above rollback rate, a direct cost to families owning homes in the county.

Housing in the Waycross zip code carries below-state average values, reflecting the local market. The historic downtown is walkable and anchored by civic institutions, parks, and cultural venues, though schools in the district are generally situated on separate campuses outside the immediate downtown core. Everyday life in Waycross connects to small-city infrastructure: freight rail dominates transportation, and the city has no fixed-route municipal transit.

Waresboro sits in Ware County, which contains two school districts. Proficiency comparisons across the county's districts are not available because the comparison universe is too small to support reliable positioning.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 353%

School 53% · District 40% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

Grade 462%

School 62% · District 51% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median

Grade 543%

School 43% · District 40% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 336%

School 36% · District 31% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median

Grade 434%

School 34% · District 40% · ▼ 5 pts below district

even with state median

Grade 534%

School 34% · District 37% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median

Science

Grade 552%

School 52% · District 43% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

Social studies

Grades 3-892%

School 92% · district not reported

▲ 8 pts above state median

This schoolWare 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.