City Schools of Decatur Calendar 2026–2027

City Schools of Decatur serves 5,220 K–12 students within a compact independent city district surrounded by DeKalb County School District. Its elementary network is deliberately divided by age. Five neighborhood schools serve prekindergarten or kindergarten through grade two, while Fifth Avenue and Talley Street are upper-elementary schools for grades three through five. Students then come together at Beacon Hill Middle and Decatur High.

That structure means no child follows a single neighborhood K–5 campus. Third grade is a districtwide transition point, and the assigned upper-elementary school is linked to the lower-elementary attendance area. The word “Upper” identifies a regular stage of the city feeder system: Fifth Avenue and Talley Street serve assigned upper-elementary grades.

The municipal boundary is as important as the school pairing. Many properties with a Decatur postal address lie outside the City of Decatur and are served by DeKalb County schools. A family must confirm city-school residency before using the lower-to-upper elementary pathway. Once inside the district, the early grades are distributed among neighborhood campuses, but the secondary route becomes citywide.