The top reported proficiency rate is 86% in Math. The lowest is 38% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Gadsden Elementary Magnet School
Gadsden Elementary Magnet School sits on Providence Road in Quincy, the county seat of Gadsden County in Florida's panhandle, serving students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. It is a small school by any measure, and its grade span makes it one of the few places in the county where a child can move from their earliest school years all the way through middle school without changing buildings.
The school's population is predominantly Black, with a meaningful Hispanic presence and very small numbers of students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the broader economic reality of Quincy and Gadsden County, where household incomes run well below state and national medians and the poverty rate is high. Data on special-education and English-learner populations were not available in what we reviewed.
Academic results on Florida's FAST assessments present a genuinely uneven picture across grades. In math, the third-grade and sixth-grade cohorts both posted results at the high end of what the state reports, and the seventh-grade cohort came in just below that ceiling. Fifth-grade math proficiency fell to a majority but well short of those upper-grade results. Fourth-grade math and ELA results were suppressed, likely because the group tested was small enough that the state withholds the figures to protect student privacy, a common feature at very small schools and not necessarily a signal of poor performance. In ELA, third grade came in solidly above the midpoint, seventh grade matched the strong math result at that level, and fifth, sixth, and eighth grades fell in the range of roughly half to two-thirds proficient. Eighth-grade ELA sits at the lower end of the grades reported. Fifth-grade science proficiency was below half. Trend data across years was not available, so it is not possible to say whether these results are improving, stable, or declining. A parent who wants to understand the trajectory would be worth asking the school directly about that.
The comparison data available for Gadsden County includes only a single district, so placing this school against peer districts in a meaningful way is not possible from what we have.
No information on program offerings was included in the data, and the district brief search did not surface confirmed parent-relevant changes, so those sections are left out rather than filled with guesswork.
On the housing side, Quincy's home values sit well below the Florida state median and below the national median as well, and values have dipped modestly in the past year. For buyers, this is one of the more affordable entry points in Florida, though the broader economic context of the county means the affordability comes alongside lower local wages and public services under pressure from growth. Publicly reported sources describe the city as experiencing a modest development push after a long period of near-flat population, with new apartment construction near the Pat Thomas Parkway corridor and incoming retail. City leadership has described the existing housing stock as aging and in need of modernization. The I-10 corridor places Quincy within reach of Tallahassee, which carries the larger regional employment base in state government, healthcare, and higher education. Quincy itself is car-dependent outside the walkable historic downtown, which does carry a genuine civic core: the courthouse square, the Gadsden Arts Center, Tanyard Creek Park, and the county library system all sit within a compact area.
Gadsden Elementary Magnet is a school that fits families who want a single small campus to carry their children from preschool into the end of middle school, in a community where the cost of housing is low relative to most of Florida. The academic results show real strengths at certain grade levels, particularly in upper-middle-school math and ELA, alongside weaker results in the elementary grades in science and some ELA grades. The small enrollment means any individual cohort's results can swing substantially from year to year, and suppressed data at fourth grade limits the full picture. Families may want to ask the school directly about instructional supports, program focus, and how student performance has moved over recent years.
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