Raa Middle School, Tallahassee FL

Original Research by School Decision on Raa Middle School

RAA Middle School sits on West Tharpe Street in northwest Tallahassee, serving sixth through eighth graders in the Leon County school district. It is a mid-sized middle school for its grade band, with enrollment spread fairly evenly across the three grade levels. About half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the school's racial composition is majority Black, with a substantial share of white students, smaller Hispanic and multiracial populations, and very small shares of Asian and other groups. Data on English learners and students with IEPs was not available in the materials we reviewed.

On Florida's state assessments, the picture varies by grade and subject. Eighth graders show the strongest math results, performing well above the school's sixth and seventh grade math results. ELA proficiency is more consistent across grades, with sixth and eighth graders at similar levels and seventh grade somewhat lower. Science is tested only at eighth grade, and those results land in a range that a parent would want to ask about. Placed against other districts in Leon County, the school's overall proficiency index sits below the midpoint of that comparison set, which includes five districts. A family comparing schools within the county should weigh that positioning alongside the school's demographic composition and what support services the district provides, and it may be worth asking the school directly about academic intervention programs and how they track student growth over the three middle school years.

Multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible from this information to say whether performance has been improving, holding steady, or declining. The absence of trend data is a real gap for a family trying to gauge trajectory.

No program offerings were included in the data, so details about electives, extracurriculars, or any specialty tracks are not reflected here. Parents would want to get that picture directly from the school.

On the housing side, the zip code around the school sits well below both the Florida statewide median home value and the national median, making the Tallahassee market generally more accessible than coastal Florida. Home values in the area have seen a modest uptick over the past year. Rents are also relatively modest, and the rent-to-income ratio here is meaningfully below what renters face in many other parts of the state. For families weighing a move to this part of Tallahassee, the broader neighborhood is part of a city that is car-dependent outside of downtown and Midtown, though the city is actively adding bike lanes and transit infrastructure, including a new southside transit center that broke ground in 2024.

Tallahassee itself is a government and university town. The state capital, Florida State University, and Florida A&M University are all close to the city center, and the largest employers are state agencies, the universities, the school district, and Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare. That institutional base gives the metro unusual employment stability relative to Florida's more tourism-driven economies. Growth is modest but steady, and planners are working to add housing density as demand builds, with several mixed-use and single-family rental projects coming online in recent years.

For the Leon district overall, we searched for recent referendum, curriculum, or budget changes relevant to parents but were unable to confirm any from reliable sources before our research concluded, so we left that section out rather than speculate.

RAA is a neighborhood public middle school in a transitional part of Tallahassee, with academic results that place it below the middle of the Leon County comparison set. Families prioritizing academic performance relative to county peers may want to explore what intervention supports and enrichment opportunities the school offers, and how its results break out for specific student groups beyond the all-students figures shown here.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 649%

School 49% · District 59% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 743%

School 43% · District 55% · ▼ 12 pts below district

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

Grade 865%

School 65% · District 46% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 656%

School 56% · District 58% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 744%

School 44% · District 55% · ▼ 11 pts below district

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

Grade 856%

School 56% · District 54% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Science

Grade 843%

School 43% · District 41% · ▲ 2 pts above district

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

This schoolLEON, 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 6Lower-income49%Higher-income64%15 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income33%Higher-income53%20 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income47%Higher-income64%17 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income40%Higher-income60%20 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income33%Higher-income52%20 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income60%Higher-income70%9 pp gap