Rutledge H. Pearson Elementary School, Jacksonville FL

Original Research by School Decision on Rutledge H. Pearson Elementary School

Rutledge H. Pearson Elementary School sits on Roanoke Boulevard in Jacksonville's Northside, serving children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school within Duval County Public Schools. The school carries a name with historical weight in Jacksonville's civil rights history, and the building draws from a neighborhood that is predominantly residential, removed from the downtown core and the more heavily developed suburban commercial districts on the Southside.

The enrollment is substantial for an elementary school of this grade band. The student body is overwhelmingly Black, with small Hispanic and white populations. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which means this is a high-poverty campus by any standard measure. Data on English learner rates and special education rates were not reported in the available records, so parents seeking those specifics may want to contact the school directly.

State assessment results from Florida's FAST exams paint a mixed picture. In reading and language arts, third graders scored at a level where fewer than a third reached proficiency, which is a real concern for foundational literacy. Fourth and fifth graders showed improvement over that benchmark, with roughly four in ten and nearly half reaching proficiency in ELA respectively, suggesting some upward trajectory through the grades. Math results tell a somewhat different story: fourth and fifth graders performed meaningfully better, with a large majority of fourth graders reaching proficiency, and fifth graders not far behind. Third-grade math proficiency was lower, closer to mid-range. On the statewide fifth-grade science assessment, about half of students scored proficiently. The trend data across years was not available in the records provided, so whether these figures represent improvement, decline, or stability from prior years cannot be assessed here.

The comparison framework for placing Pearson among its peers has limited utility: Duval County has only two districts in the comparison set, which the data notes is too small to generate a reliable relative standing. Pearson's performance context is better understood against the statewide picture, where these ELA results, particularly in third grade, sit below the middle of the distribution.

On the housing side, the ZIP code around the school carries home values well below the Florida statewide median and well below the national median as well, and values have dipped modestly year over year. Rents in the area are relatively modest, with a slight year-over-year increase. For families looking at affordability, this part of Jacksonville's Northside presents a different calculus than the city's more sought-after districts like Riverside, San Marco, or the St. Johns corridor.

Jacksonville itself is a large, sprawling city with a rapidly developing downtown and one of the faster-growing metro economies in the state. Major employers span health care systems, logistics anchored by JAXPORT and Amazon distribution facilities, the military presence at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, and a growing financial services sector. The school's Northside location is car-dependent, as most of Jacksonville outside the downtown and Riverside cores tends to be, publicly reported sources note.

No program-specific offerings were available in the data for this school, so a parent wanting to know about enrichment, specialized curriculum, or extracurricular activities would need to check directly with the school or the Duval County Public Schools district. The district brief search did not surface confirmed recent policy or structural changes of note. Chronic absenteeism data was not available.

A parent considering Pearson will want to weigh the ELA proficiency picture carefully, particularly at the third-grade level, and may find it worthwhile to ask the school directly about reading intervention programs and how students who enter below grade level are supported across the elementary years.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 346%

School 46% · District 59% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 470%

School 70% · District 60% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 565%

School 65% · District 54% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 329%

School 29% · District 51% · ▼ 22 pts below district

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Grade 442%

School 42% · District 50% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 50% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Science

Grade 550%

School 50% · District 52% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

This schoolDUVAL, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income27%Higher-income35%8 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income45%Higher-income36%9 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income47%Higher-income52%5 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income36%Higher-income0%36 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income43%Higher-income58%15 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income72%Higher-income64%7 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income63%Higher-income70%7 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income64%Higher-income100%36 pp gap