The top reported proficiency rate is 82% in Science. The lowest is 71% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Callahan Intermediate School
Callahan Intermediate School sits on Ball Park Road in Callahan, a small rural town in Nassau County tucked at a major highway crossroads roughly a short drive north of Jacksonville. It serves third through fifth grade, which means there is no graduation rate to report and no AP or career pathway data applies to this grade band. What the school does have is a solid academic record on Florida's state assessments, and that is the most useful starting point for a parent sizing up this placement.
On Florida's FAST assessments, the school's math results are genuinely strong. Third graders come in at a solid majority proficient, fourth graders score higher still, and fifth graders reach near-ceiling results for the grade band statewide. ELA follows a similar upward arc across the three grades, with third grade reading sitting lower than the math picture but fourth and fifth grade both landing well above the midpoint. The fifth-grade science assessment, administered statewide, also shows a large majority of students meeting proficiency. That climb from third to fifth grade across all subjects is a meaningful pattern. It suggests students are building skills as they move through the school rather than plateauing. A parent with a third grader arriving below grade level in reading has reason to ask the school what supports are in place early, since the third-grade ELA figure is the softest number in the profile, but the upward trend is real.
Just under half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, meaning the school serves a genuinely mixed economic community. The student body is predominantly white, with small Hispanic, multiracial, and Black populations and very few students from other backgrounds. Data on English learner counts and IEP rates was not available in the data provided, so families with students who receive special education services or English language support may want to ask the school directly about those programs. Title I status was also not listed in the data.
The school sits inside Nassau County School District, the only district in the county. Because there is only one district in Nassau County, the comparison data does not yield a meaningful county-level position, so placing this school against peers requires looking at Florida state benchmarks rather than a local peer set. Multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible to say from this profile whether proficiency has been climbing, flat, or varying year to year.
The town around the school is genuinely rural in feel. Publicly reported sources describe Callahan as a bedroom community for Jacksonville with an agricultural identity: farmland, livestock, tight-knit neighbors, and a compact commercial core anchored by a historic train depot. Most residents drive to work. Community events like the Railroad Day Festival and a biweekly farmers market give the town periodic gathering points, but daily street life is limited. Nassau County as a whole is among Florida's faster-growing counties, and Callahan is growing off a small base while the county's long-range plan tries to keep the town's rural character intact. Families considering buying here should know that home values in the area currently sit modestly above the Florida state benchmark, though they have been essentially flat year over year. The district funds teacher pay, arts, athletics, and safety through a voter-approved millage increase passed in 2022 that adds to property tax bills annually.
One district-level development worth knowing: the Nassau County School District settled a federal lawsuit in 2024 over the removal of dozens of library books, agreeing to return all titles to school library shelves. Publicly reported accounts identify the removed books as including works with LGBTQ+ and race-related content. Families who weight library access and curriculum breadth will want to factor that history into their view of the district.
For a family moving to Callahan with elementary-age children, the academic picture at this school is genuinely encouraging, especially in math and in the upward trajectory across grades. The community is rural, car-dependent, and slow-changing in character, which fits some families well and others less so.
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