The top reported proficiency rate is 49% in Science. The lowest is 37% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Meadowlawn Middle School
Meadowlawn Middle School sits on the north St. Petersburg grid, serving sixth through eighth graders as a regular public school within Pinellas County Schools. The school draws a genuinely diverse student body: white students make up the largest group, followed closely by Hispanic and Black students, with smaller Asian and multiracial populations. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing the school solidly in the economically mixed-to-high-needs range for a Pinellas middle school.
On Florida's FAST assessments, the picture is uneven and worth examining closely. Sixth-grade math results are meaningfully stronger than the other grades, sitting at a level that suggests many entering students arrive on pace. By seventh grade, math proficiency drops sharply, and eighth grade lands somewhere between the two, though still well below the sixth-grade mark. ELA results are more consistent across all three grades but hover in the lower-to-middle range. Eighth-grade science comes in just under the halfway mark statewide. These are not numbers that signal a school trending strongly upward, and a parent whose child is in the middle of the math progression in particular may want to ask Meadowlawn directly what supports are in place for students who fall behind between grades six and seven. Multi-year trend data was not available in the records reviewed, so it is not possible to say whether these figures represent an improvement or a decline from prior years.
Pinellas County Schools has made some moves worth knowing. Voters in late 2024 approved a renewed and expanded local property tax that directly funds teacher and support-staff bonuses plus arts, music, reading, and technology programs across the district. That vote is a stabilizing factor for staffing and elective programming at schools like Meadowlawn. The district also developed its own custom ELA curriculum grounded in the science of reading, starting in elementary grades, and publicly reported earning its first-ever state 'A' grade in 2024. Those improvements are rooted in the K-5 pipeline, so families whose children are entering Meadowlawn now are inheriting whatever foundation that curriculum built or is still building.
Course offerings and program details specific to Meadowlawn were not available in the data reviewed, so it is not possible to describe what electives, enrichment, or intervention supports the school offers beyond standard middle-grade instruction. IEP and English learner population data were also absent from the records, which means parents of students with disabilities or students who are multilingual learners should ask the school directly about its capacity and caseloads in those areas.
The surrounding St. Petersburg neighborhood gives this school a distinctive setting. The city is in an active growth phase, with downtown anchored by a university, major cultural institutions, and employers spanning finance, health care, and marine science. Publicly reported walk scores place downtown among the most walkable areas in the region. The neighborhood immediately around the school, in the northern residential belt of the city, has a residential grid character with mature streets and modest housing stock. Home values in the school's zip code have softened meaningfully over the past year, pulling back after pandemic-era appreciation, while rents have held roughly flat. Buying in the area currently runs above the state median but aligns more closely with national benchmarks, and the rent-to-income ratio sits near the upper edge of what housing economists generally consider affordable.
For families considering Meadowlawn: this is a diverse, accessible urban middle school embedded in one of Florida's more culturally active cities, with a supportive district funding environment. The academic results in math across grades seven and eight, and in ELA across all three grades, are below midline and represent real gaps that families should discuss with the school before enrolling, particularly for students who need consistent grade-level challenge or who are already behind.
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