Lake Windward Elementary School landed ninth on U.S. News & World Report's 2027 list of Georgia's best public elementary schools, released Tuesday, Oct. 20.
The Alpharetta school was one of three local campuses to crack the publication's statewide top 10 across multiple categories. Webb Bridge Middle School placed 10th among Georgia's public middle schools, and Amana Academy earned spots on two separate charter school lists, according to SaportaReport.
Amana Academy, a K-8 charter school on South Main Street, ranked as Georgia's fourth-highest charter elementary school and third-highest charter middle school, according to the school's announcement. Because Amana serves kindergarten through eighth grade, it appeared on both lists as a single campus.
The rankings evaluated roughly 70,000 schools nationwide, comparing math and reading proficiency on state tests alongside student demographic data, the Augusta Chronicle reported. Ties were broken by student-teacher ratios.
Half the ranking weight goes to raw math and reading scores. The other half measures how students perform relative to expectations based on their socioeconomic backgrounds, according to SaportaReport. Schools that outperform those predictions score higher.
Amana Academy's U.S. News profile shows 60% of its students scored at or above the proficient level in math and 64% in reading. Both figures top the Fulton County district averages of 48% in math and 50% in reading. The school enrolls 667 students and has a 12-to-1 student-teacher ratio, better than the district average.
All 57 full-time teachers are certified.
Eric Brooks, U.S. News' director of education data analysis, said the rankings are meant to offer insight into academic performance rather than serve as a final measure of school quality. "The rankings and data are intended to be a starting point, and not the final word for parents when considering educational opportunities for their children," Brooks told SaportaReport.
Metro Atlanta schools dominated the statewide results, claiming eight of the top 10 spots in both the elementary and middle school categories. The assessment data underlying the 2027 rankings comes from the 2023-24 school year.
