The top reported proficiency rate is 47% in Math. The lowest is 26% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Melrose Elementary School
Melrose Elementary sits on the south side of St. Petersburg, serving children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school in the Pinellas County district. The school is small relative to what you might expect for its grade band, and the student body is predominantly Black, with Hispanic and multiracial students making up most of the remainder. The vast majority of families qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places Melrose among the highest-poverty elementary schools by that measure. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs was not available in what we reviewed.
Academic results on Florida's FAST assessments and the statewide science exam tell a mixed story, and parents should look at the full picture carefully. In the upper elementary grades, math and reading proficiency for fourth graders runs notably higher than for third and fifth graders, where results are considerably lower. Fifth-grade science proficiency is also low. The pattern across grades is uneven in a way that a parent would reasonably want to raise directly with the school, asking about instructional continuity, supports for students who fall behind, and how the school monitors individual progress. Multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible to say from this data whether results are improving, stable, or declining.
On the district side, there are two developments worth knowing. Pinellas County Schools publicly reported earning its first-ever top state letter grade in 2024, attributed in part to a custom ELA curriculum built around the science of reading and aligned to Florida's current standards. That curriculum shift started in the early elementary grades and extends through grade five, which maps directly to Melrose's grade band. Whether that improvement is reflected evenly across all schools, including higher-poverty campuses, is worth asking. Separately, voters renewed and expanded a local property tax in late 2024 that funds teacher and staff bonuses and programs in reading, music, art, and technology. That levy matters both to families as a housing cost and as a signal of community investment in school staffing and programs.
The neighborhood around Melrose is part of a city undergoing genuine transformation. St. Petersburg has an active downtown core with a walkable waterfront, arts and cultural institutions, a bus rapid transit line, and a university campus embedded in the urban fabric. Major employers span financial services, electronics manufacturing, health systems, and marine science. Home values in the zip code have declined modestly over the past year and sit below the Florida state median, making this one of the more accessible parts of a city that has otherwise seen rapid appreciation. Rents take up a meaningful share of household income by the national rent-to-income standard, though the rent trend has been essentially flat recently. The broader development boom, including the large redevelopment planned around the old Tropicana Field site, is reshaping the south St. Petersburg area and may affect neighborhood character over the coming years.
For a family considering Melrose, the honest read is this: the school serves a community with high economic need, and the state assessment results in most tested grades and subjects are below where a family would want them to be. That does not tell you everything about what happens inside the building, and it is worth visiting and asking the principal specifically about early literacy instruction, reading intervention, and what support looks like for a child who enters behind grade level. The district's curriculum investment and the renewed property tax provide some structural support, but a parent should not assume those translate automatically into strong outcomes at this particular campus without getting a clearer picture from the school directly.
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