Cross Bayou Elementary School, Pinellas Park FL

Original Research by School Decision on Cross Bayou Elementary School

Cross Bayou Elementary sits in Pinellas Park, serving children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public elementary school in the Pinellas County district. The school is a neighborhood-scale campus, and its student body reflects genuine economic and racial diversity. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the enrollment spans White, Hispanic, Black, Asian, and multiracial students, with no single group forming an overwhelming majority. IEP and English learner rates were not available in the data.

On Florida's FAST assessments, the picture is mixed and worth examining closely. Third graders showed the strongest math results among the tested grades, performing at a level that clears the majority threshold, though still leaving a large share of students below proficiency. Math results dip noticeably in fourth and fifth grade, where fewer than half of students scored at grade level. ELA results follow a similar shape: third grade sits around the midpoint, and fourth and fifth grade fall below it, with fifth grade reading proficiency the lowest figure across all subjects and grades reported. The one bright spot is fifth grade science, where the school's proficiency rate was the strongest of any subject tested, with a clear majority of students reaching grade level. Parents who want to understand whether these results reflect a recent trend will find limited help here; multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible to say from this data whether these numbers are improving, stable, or declining. That is a reasonable question to ask the school directly.

The district context matters. Pinellas County Schools, publicly reported, earned its first-ever state "A" grade in 2024, driven in part by a custom early literacy curriculum built around Florida's B.E.S.T. standards and a science-of-reading approach that starts in kindergarten and runs through fifth grade. This is a district-wide instructional shift, and its effects will vary school by school. In November 2024, Pinellas County voters approved renewing and expanding a local school property tax, publicly reported, doubling the rate from the prior level. The funding supports teacher and staff bonuses and programs including reading, music, art, and technology. Prospective homeowners should factor this into their tax calculation, and families with children can reasonably expect it to help stabilize school staffing and program offerings for the duration of the levy.

The housing market near Cross Bayou is priced below the Florida statewide median for home values, and it has softened over the past year, with both home values and rents down modestly. Rents in the area run at a level that consumes a meaningful share of a typical household's income, and the rent-versus-mortgage gap is narrow, which may make buying more attractive to those who can manage the down payment in the current rate environment. Detailed information about Pinellas Park's neighborhood character, walkability, and local employers was not available in the research conducted for this profile.

Comparison data relative to districts in Pinellas County was not applicable here in a meaningful way: the county has only one district, so no peer positioning is possible. Chronic absenteeism and graduation rate data do not apply to an elementary school serving pre-K through fifth grade.

For a family weighing Cross Bayou, the school offers a diverse peer environment and sits inside a district that is publicly investing in early reading instruction in ways that have begun to move district-level outcomes. The school's own proficiency results, particularly in upper-elementary ELA and math, fall below the majority threshold and may warrant a direct conversation with the school about what supports are in place for students who are reading or calculating below grade level.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 357%

School 57% · District 68% · ▼ 11 pts below district

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

Grade 444%

School 44% · District 68% · ▼ 24 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 545%

School 45% · District 65% · ▼ 20 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 355%

School 55% · District 65% · ▼ 10 pts below district

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

Grade 440%

School 40% · District 62% · ▼ 21 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 538%

School 38% · District 61% · ▼ 23 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Science

Grade 562%

School 62% · District 67% · ▼ 5 pts below district

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

This schoolPINELLAS, 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-income50%Higher-income61%11 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income29%Higher-income65%36 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income37%Higher-income42%5 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income46%Higher-income70%24 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income42%Higher-income47%5 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income49%Higher-income33%15 pp gap