Dunedin Highland Middle School, Dunedin FL

Original Research by School Decision on Dunedin Highland Middle School

Dunedin Highland Middle School sits on Patricia Avenue in Dunedin, a Gulf Coast city in Pinellas County with one of the most genuinely walkable downtown corridors in small-town Florida. The school serves sixth through eighth grade as a regular public school within Pinellas County Schools.

The school draws a diverse student body. White students are the plurality, with Hispanic and Black students each making up roughly a fifth of enrollment, and students of two or more races and Asian students present as well. Close to half the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting a broad economic mix. Data on English learners and students with IEPs was not available in what was reported to us.

On Florida's FAST assessments, the picture varies meaningfully by grade and subject. ELA proficiency is relatively consistent across all three grade levels, with sixth, seventh, and eighth graders all landing in a similar range, each well above half of students testing proficient. That kind of steadiness across three consecutive years of the middle school pathway is a genuine strength. Math tells a different story. Sixth graders perform solidly, eighth graders perform even stronger, but seventh grade math proficiency drops sharply, sitting well below the other two grades. That gap is real and worth asking the school about directly; a parent whose child will be entering seventh grade should ask what is driving that pattern and what the school does to support students through it. Eighth grade science proficiency, measured by the Florida Statewide Science Assessment, sits in a range comparable to the ELA scores. Multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible to say from this data whether these results are improving, holding steady, or slipping.

A graduation rate does not apply here because the school serves only middle grades. No AP, dual enrollment, or career pathway data was provided, which is consistent with a grades 6 through 8 setting.

Two district-level developments are worth knowing. Pinellas County voters publicly approved a renewal and expansion of the local school property tax in late 2024, doubling the rate for a multi-year period. The funds support teacher and staff bonuses and programs in reading, music, art, and technology. For a prospective homebuyer, this is a real ongoing cost to factor in; for a family already in the area, it represents a committed funding stream for the programs and staffing their student depends on. Separately, the district has publicly rolled out a custom ELA curriculum built around the science of reading and Florida's current academic standards, beginning in the early elementary grades and expanding upward. The district earned its first-ever top state grade in 2024 under this approach, which is a meaningful signal about the direction of reading instruction across the system.

Dunedin itself gives the school a distinctive setting. Downtown Main Street has restaurants, craft breweries, boutiques, and live music, anchored by Pioneer Park and the Pinellas Trail, which runs directly through the city and connects to Tarpon Springs to the north and St. Petersburg to the south. The Dunedin Causeway leads to Honeymoon Island State Park. Residential neighborhoods near the school tend toward 1960s through 1980s construction on generously sized lots with mature trees. The housing market around the school sits above the Florida statewide median and above the national median, and values have edged slightly downward over the past year. Rents have moved modestly upward. The rent-to-income ratio runs close to the commonly cited affordability threshold, making the rental market tight for families on moderate incomes.

Major employers in Dunedin were not identified in the sources we reviewed, so the local employment picture beyond the downtown retail and service economy is not characterized here.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 665%

School 65% · District 63% · ▲ 2 pts above district

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

Grade 730%

School 30% · District 33% · ▼ 3 pts below district

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

Grade 875%

School 75% · District 64% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 670%

School 70% · District 61% · ▲ 9 pts above district

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

Grade 768%

School 68% · District 59% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 872%

School 72% · District 59% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Science

Grade 869%

School 69% · District 58% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above 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 6Lower-income51%Higher-income84%34 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income50%Higher-income85%36 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income60%Higher-income84%25 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income51%Higher-income81%31 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income27%Higher-income35%7 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income61%Higher-income88%26 pp gap