John E. Ford K-8 School, Jacksonville FL

Original Research by School Decision on John E. Ford K-8 School

John E. Ford K-8 School sits on Cleveland Street in the 32209 zip code of Jacksonville's urban core, north of downtown, serving students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. The school is a traditional public school within Duval County Public Schools, one of the largest district systems in Florida.

The enrollment is mid-sized for a PK-8 building. The student body is predominantly Black, with smaller shares of white, Hispanic, and multiracial students. A majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which signals a community with real economic pressure. IEP and English learner population data were not available in what was provided.

On Florida's FAST assessments and the Statewide Science Assessment, the picture is uneven and worth looking at closely. Third grade math and ELA results are the strongest point in the building, with well over half of students reaching proficiency in both subjects at that grade level. Sixth and seventh grade ELA results are also reasonably solid. But fourth and seventh grade math proficiency rates fall well below half, and fifth grade science proficiency is in the lower third. Eighth grade math, ELA, and science all land in the mid-range. The pattern suggests that the third grade is a relative strength while the upper-elementary math grades show more strain. Multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible to say from this payload whether results are improving, holding steady, or declining. A parent would want to ask the school directly about what interventions are in place for fourth and fifth grade math specifically.

No program information was provided in the data, so course access, enrichment offerings, extracurriculars, or any specialty programming cannot be described here. Staffing ratios, chronic absenteeism, and discipline data were also absent.

The school's zip code sits in one of Jacksonville's lower-cost housing pockets. Home values here are well below the Florida state median and well below the national median, and they have declined year over year. Rents, by contrast, have ticked up modestly. For families buying in, the area offers affordability that is rare elsewhere in the Jacksonville metro, which has been publicly cited as one of the faster-growing housing markets in the country heading into the next few years. Downtown Jacksonville itself is undergoing a wave of residential and commercial development, with projects along both banks of the St. Johns River advancing simultaneously, including a University of Florida graduate campus in LaVilla and a major stadium renovation. That growth context has not yet translated into rising values in the immediate school zone, but families considering the area long-term are entering a city in visible transition.

The comparison set for Duval County contained only two districts, which made a meaningful proficiency-index comparison statistically unreliable, so that positioning was not calculated. Graduation rate and chronic absenteeism comparisons were also not available for this school, since it does not serve high school grades and attendance data was absent from the payload.

For a family whose child enters in the early grades, the third grade results suggest the school can produce strong foundational outcomes. The middle grades math trajectory is the area to probe, and a parent may want to ask the school what support structures exist as students move from fifth into sixth grade and whether the middle grades are building toward a strong transition to high school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 367%

School 67% · District 59% · ▲ 8 pts above district

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

Grade 433%

School 33% · District 60% · ▼ 27 pts below district

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Grade 538%

School 38% · District 54% · ▼ 16 pts below district

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

Grade 661%

School 61% · District 47% · ▲ 14 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

Grade 731%

School 31% · District 43% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 18 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 855%

School 55% · District 47% · ▲ 8 pts above district

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

English language arts

Grade 363%

School 63% · District 51% · ▲ 12 pts above district

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

Grade 435%

School 35% · District 50% · ▼ 14 pts below district

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

Grade 548%

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

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

Grade 653%

School 53% · District 49% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 762%

School 62% · District 48% · ▲ 14 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 20 pts above county median

Grade 857%

School 57% · District 47% · ▲ 10 pts above district

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

Science

Grade 537%

School 37% · District 52% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 857%

School 57% · District 37% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 26 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-income46%Higher-income75%30 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income29%Higher-income50%21 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income23%Higher-income73%50 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income32%Higher-income77%45 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income46%Higher-income77%31 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income55%Higher-income62%7 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income50%Higher-income78%28 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income20%Higher-income64%44 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income15%Higher-income62%46 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income47%Higher-income77%29 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income40%Higher-income67%27 pp gap