Parkside Elementary School vs Bolton Academy Elementary

Parkside Elementary School and Bolton Academy Elementary are separated by 7.7 miles within Atlanta and sit just one slot apart in Georgia's statewide rankings — Parkside at #33 of 2,268 schools and Bolton Academy at #34 of 2,268 — with both earning an overall rating of 9.1/10. These two schools represent genuinely elite options within Georgia elementary education, placing each in roughly the top 1.5% of all schools in the state.

The academic profiles diverge modestly but meaningfully. Bolton Academy Elementary holds a 7.7/10 academic score against Parkside Elementary School's 7.4/10, a 0.3-point edge that suggests slightly stronger current proficiency levels at Bolton. However, Parkside flips that advantage on growth: a 9.9/10 growth score compared to Bolton Academy's 9.6/10. Parkside's near-perfect growth score indicates students there are making exceptional year-over-year academic gains — the highest possible signal that instruction is accelerating student outcomes regardless of where kids start.

On enrollment and demographics, Parkside Elementary School serves 603 students versus Bolton Academy Elementary's 557, making Parkside the larger campus. Both schools run PK through 5th grade. Parkside's student-teacher ratio of 13.7:1 is slightly wider than Bolton Academy's 13.3:1, meaning Bolton families get fractionally more individual attention per student. The free and reduced-price lunch rates differ by 7 percentage points — 48% at Parkside versus 41% at Bolton Academy — reflecting a modest difference in the economic composition of each school's families.

At the program level, both schools cover the same grade band (PK–05) and operate within Atlanta's public school system. The primary distinction parents should weigh is the academic-versus-growth trade-off: Bolton Academy's higher academic score points to stronger aggregate proficiency today, while Parkside's 9.9/10 growth score — three tenths of a point above Bolton's — signals a school that is systematically moving students forward at an exceptional rate.