Six districts at a glance
Unlike Atlanta and DeKalb, this part of the metro is simple on paper: each county has one countywide school district (a small part of Newton County is served by Social Circle’s city district). That makes the Promise question easier to check, but the counts have moved a lot in a year.
| District | Main communities | Listed schools, 2026-27 | Listed schools, 2025-26 | Students in special education, fall 2024-25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clayton County | Forest Park, Riverdale, Lovejoy, Morrow and Jonesboro, plus about a quarter of College Park’s land | 24 | 22 | 5,623 (11.3%) |
| Henry County | McDonough, Stockbridge, Locust Grove and Hampton | 17 | 23 | 5,960 (14.0%) |
| Newton County | Covington, Oxford and Porterdale | 13 | 14 | 2,509 (13.9%) |
| Griffin-Spalding County | Griffin and the rest of Spalding County | 10 | 9 | 1,300 (14.6%) |
| Rockdale County | Conyers and the rest of Rockdale County | 7 | 5 | 1,931 (12.9%) |
| Douglas County | Douglasville and part of Villa Rica (most of Villa Rica is in Carroll County) | 7 | 12 | 3,520 (13.9%) |
| Six districts | 78 | 85 |
Listed schools: our count of GOSA’s 2026-27 list and the February 14, 2025 list. Special education: GOSA’s fall 2024-25 K-12 counts (full-time-equivalent), with each district’s share of K-12 enrollment in brackets; these show public-school services, not unmet need or Promise eligibility. Cities from Census Bureau place estimates; partial-city splits from federal NCES boundary files. Social Circle’s city district, which reaches into Newton County, had one listed school in 2025-26 and none now.
Which county is my city in?
Some national tutoring directories get this wrong, placing Stockbridge in Clayton County or inventing a “McDonough County.” By Census Bureau records, Stockbridge, McDonough, Hampton and Locust Grove are in Henry County; Jonesboro, Forest Park, Riverdale, Morrow and Lovejoy are in Clayton County; Conyers is in Rockdale; Covington is in Newton; Griffin is in Spalding; and Douglasville is in Douglas. Confirm your own address with the district.
Why the year-to-year change matters
GOSA rebuilds the list every year from schools’ two most recent years of CCRPI scores. Here, three districts lost listed schools (Henry 23 to 17, Douglas 12 to 7, Newton 14 to 13) and three gained (Clayton 22 to 24, Rockdale 5 to 7, Griffin-Spalding 9 to 10). Statewide, 133 schools joined the list and 139 left it (our count).
- If you checked last year, check again. The 2026-27 list is the one used for the 2026 application windows, the last of which runs November 1–30, 2026.
- Already accepted? GESA’s Family Handbook says a student who was accepted stays eligible even if the zoned school later drops off the list.
- Live in the zone, don’t just attend. Odyssey’s guidance says a student who attends a listed school while living outside its zone does not meet the requirement. Our address check explains the steps.
- The next list is due by December 1, 2026. Until then, the table above shows the current list.
Where the children are
The six counties had about 180,467 children aged 5 to 17 in July 2025, 1.0% fewer than at the April 2020 Census base (our sum of Census Bureau estimates). The trend splits sharply by county:
- Clayton County: 52,948 children aged 5 to 17, −7.5% since April 2020
- Henry County: 48,890 children aged 5 to 17, +2.7% since April 2020
- Douglas County: 28,131 children aged 5 to 17, +1.6% since April 2020
- Newton County: 22,633 children aged 5 to 17, +6.5% since April 2020
- Rockdale County: 16,508 children aged 5 to 17, −4.1% since April 2020
- Spalding County: 11,357 children aged 5 to 17, +1.6% since April 2020
Clayton County has the most children and the most listed schools of the six, but its school-age population fell the most. Newton and Henry are growing. These are population estimates, not counts of children who need help or who qualify for Promise.
Local options to know about
Checked October 2, 2026. These are separate organizations, not partners of ours, and we don’t know their current openings.
- Clayton County’s public library: free live online homework help.
- University of West Georgia Comprehensive Community Clinic (Carrollton, Carroll County): the nearest university clinic we found, offering in-person K-5 math and literacy tutoring in the fall and spring semesters. Its page listed tutoring at $75 per subject per semester for 10 sessions when we checked in October 2026.
How we differ: our sessions are online and one-to-one with a teacher certified in special education, across reading, math, writing and executive-function skills.
Online sessions from a south or east metro home
Your child joins a live video session from home and works one-to-one with the teacher. Share any IEP or 504 academic goals you want us to focus on, and the teacher plans around them. Most households in these counties have broadband (from 91.3% in Clayton to 94.9% in Douglas), with Spalding lower at 88.3% (American Community Survey 2020–2024). If your connection is patchy, tell us in the consultation.
We tutor reading and dyslexia, math, ADHD and executive function and academic skills for autistic learners. We provide academic tutoring only, not therapy, speech services, evaluations or diagnosis. For an evaluation or IEP question, your county’s school district is the place to start; the Georgia Department of Education’s parent mentor list by county and school system and our Georgia IEP help page can help.
Paying with Georgia Promise
Special Ed Resource is an approved provider in the Georgia Promise Scholarship Odyssey Marketplace. Families apply through mygeorgiapromise.org and spend Promise funds only in the Odyssey Marketplace; the program’s guidance tells families not to pay invoices out of pocket for anything they plan to buy with Promise funds. We are not GESA, Odyssey or the State of Georgia.
Promise-funded tutoring must be in a core subject and, in the program regulations’ words, “provided by an educator certified by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission,” and each Marketplace tutoring offering names its certified tutor, so we go over which teacher would lead Promise-funded sessions in the consultation. For the 2026-27 school year the scholarship is up to $6,500, paid in four quarterly payments of $1,625, and GESA may withhold up to 5% for administration. Families approved in the August or November 2026 window receive only the second half of the year’s payments. See Georgia Promise application and deadlines and paying for tutoring with Georgia Promise.
Court status: In August 2026, families filed a lawsuit in DeKalb County Superior Court (Sands v. Green) challenging the rule that students must first attend public school, according to the families’ lawyers and news reports. As of October 2, 2026, we have found no report of a ruling, and the program is operating for the 2026-27 school year. More on the court case.
Sources
- GOSA: 2025 Georgia Promise Scholarship Public School List for the 2026-27 academic year
- GOSA: Georgia Promise Scholarship Public School List, February 14, 2025 (2025-26)
- GOSA: Enrollment by Subgroup Metrics, 2024-25 (special education K-12 counts)
- Odyssey: help article on attendance zones (updated February 20, 2026)
- U.S. Census Bureau: Vintage 2025 population estimates (county by age; incorporated places)
- National Center for Education Statistics: School District Geographic Relationship Files (GRF25)
- U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year estimates, table B28002
Local figures and links checked October 2, 2026.