The top reported proficiency rate is 75% in Math. The lowest is 8% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Everglades City School
Everglades City School is a single building that serves every grade from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade, making it the only school in the community and one of the more unusual public school arrangements in Florida. Enrollment is very small, with each grade cohort often numbering only a handful of students. That scale is the defining fact of the academic experience here: a child who attends from kindergarten through graduation will spend thirteen years within the same small peer group and, in the upper grades, may find course selection limited simply by the size of the student body.
The school sits on School Drive within Everglades City's compact historic core, publicly reported to stand on a site where schools have existed since the town's early years, with the current building constructed more recently. It is part of Collier County Public Schools, a district that in late 2024 renewed a tax-neutral referendum to redirect a portion of capital funds toward operating costs, sustaining support for teacher pay, arts, and athletics through the end of the decade without a tax increase.
On the state's FAST assessments, the picture is mixed and the small enrollment matters significantly. Florida suppresses results for groups that fall below a minimum size threshold, so many grade-level results at this school are simply not reported, not because they are withheld as a performance judgment but because there are too few students in a given grade to publish without identifying individuals. The grades where results do appear show a range. Fourth-grade math proficiency came in above the midpoint among Florida schools. Sixth-grade math was similarly solid. Fourth and sixth grade ELA results were more modest, landing in the lower-middle range. Eighth-grade ELA and eighth-grade science were considerably lower, with the science figure in particular well below what a parent would want to see. Whether those eighth-grade figures reflect a persistent trend or the volatility that comes with an extremely small cohort is something a parent may want to ask the school directly, because a single difficult class year can move the needle dramatically at this enrollment size. No multi-year trend data was available to help answer that question.
A substantial share of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a meaningful degree of economic need across the community. The student population is majority white, with Hispanic students making up a sizable minority and smaller numbers of students from other backgrounds. Data on English learners and students with IEPs was not available in the payload.
No information on AP courses, dual enrollment, career pathways, or other upper-grade program offerings was available. Given the school's size, a family with a high schooler focused on advanced coursework or specific career tracks should ask the school directly what is accessible, including any arrangements the district may have with nearby institutions.
The town itself is as distinctive as the school. Everglades City is a very small, remote fishing village at the end of State Road 29 in Collier County, bordered by the Ten Thousand Islands and the Everglades. The local economy runs on commercial fishing, particularly stone crab, and on ecotourism through the Everglades National Park gateway located in town. Growth is essentially flat; the population has edged downward over recent decades, and development is constrained more by hurricane storm surge and federal flood elevation requirements than by any planning ambition. The town flooded during Hurricane Irma and again when Hurricane Ian passed through, and homes that were destroyed had to be rebuilt substantially higher off the ground under National Flood Insurance Program rules and Collier County requirements. That context matters for any family weighing housing here.
Home values in the area are moderately below the Florida statewide median, with a slight year-over-year decline. Rental market data was not available for this specific location. The price-to-income ratio nationally sits at a level that reflects current affordability pressures, and mortgage rates remain elevated, so carrying costs deserve careful consideration.
For a family already rooted in Everglades City, the school is simply the school, and its tight-knit character may suit children who thrive in small, stable environments where every teacher knows every student. For a family relocating and weighing educational options, the limited course breadth in the upper grades and the uneven assessment results, especially in eighth-grade science and ELA, are worth a direct conversation with the school before drawing conclusions.
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