The top reported proficiency rate is 48% in Science. The lowest is 36% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Fairmount Park Elementary School
Fairmount Park Elementary sits on the south side of St. Petersburg, serving prekindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school in Pinellas County Schools. The school draws from a neighborhood that reflects the city's broader economic reality: the vast majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, making this one of the higher-poverty campuses in the district. The student body is predominantly Black, with smaller shares of Hispanic and white students. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs was not available in this profile.
On Florida's FAST assessments, the academic picture is mixed and warrants honest attention. Third-grade math proficiency is the strongest result across all tested subjects and grades, sitting above the midpoint. But results decline noticeably in fourth and fifth grade math, and ELA proficiency across all three tested grades sits in a range that falls below what most Florida schools report. Fifth-grade science comes in closer to the middle of the Florida distribution than the ELA and upper-grade math results do, which is a modest bright spot. Taken together, a majority of students in most tested grades and subjects are not yet reaching proficiency on state assessments. Parents considering Fairmount Park may want to ask the school directly about its literacy and math intervention programs, how student progress is tracked across grades, and what support looks like for students who are behind grade level.
One district-level development is worth naming here. Pinellas County Schools publicly reported earning an "A" grade from the Florida Department of Education in 2024, the first time in district history, connected to a shift toward a science-of-reading approach and a custom ELA curriculum the district developed and rolled out across elementary grades. The district also publicly reported that grades three through five showed growth at roughly double the statewide average over the same period. Whether that trend has carried meaningfully into Fairmount Park's own results is not something the current data can confirm, but the curriculum context is relevant background for families weighing early literacy expectations.
The neighborhood housing market offers a useful signal about the surrounding area. Home values in this zip code have softened over the past year, running well below the Florida statewide median, and rents here sit at a level that consumes a substantial share of household income for typical renters, a dynamic consistent with a lower-income urban neighborhood. Renters and buyers here get access to a city with genuine urban texture: a walkable downtown, an active arts and dining corridor along Central Avenue, waterfront parks, a city library system, and transit options including the SunRunner bus rapid transit line. Raymond James, Jabil, Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, and a growing marine and life-science cluster anchor the local economy.
St. Petersburg itself is in a sustained development cycle. The large-scale redevelopment of the historic Gas Plant District site around Tropicana Field and several major mixed-use projects in the EDGE District represent generational changes to the city's built environment. Affordable housing construction has also expanded, with the city publicly noted as the first in Florida to adopt a "Yes in God's Backyard" provision. The area around Fairmount Park on 41st Street South is south-city residential, removed from the downtown building boom but connected to the same transit and civic infrastructure.
Voters in November 2024 publicly approved a renewed and doubled local-option school property tax, a direct cost for homeowners but also a stabilizer for district programs: teacher and support-staff bonuses, reading, music, art, and technology programs all draw from it. Prospective buyers in this zip code would factor that ongoing levy into their cost of ownership.
For a family choosing Fairmount Park, the clearest picture is of a small-to-midsized urban elementary school serving a high-need community within a district that has recently committed meaningfully to early literacy reform. The test results at this school reflect real academic challenges, and a parent would do well to engage the school directly about what specific supports are in place.
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