The top reported proficiency rate is 67% in Science. The lowest is 62% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on North Shore Elementary School
North Shore Elementary sits at the northeast edge of downtown St. Petersburg, in one of the city's historic residential neighborhoods where brick streets, mature trees, and a walkable grid connect directly to the waterfront park system along Tampa Bay. The school serves prekindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school within Pinellas County Schools.
The academic picture from Florida's most recent state assessments is mixed, and worth looking at closely. In math, proficiency runs solidly above the midpoint across the tested grades, with fourth grade posting the strongest result and third and fifth grades also above the majority of students. ELA tells a different story: third grade reads clearly above majority proficiency, but both fourth and fifth grade land near or at the majority-proficient line, meaningfully lower than the math results at those same grade levels. Fifth-grade science scores land in similar territory to third-grade math, so comfortably above half of students. No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say from this data whether results are improving or holding steady. Parents who want to understand whether specific grade-level dips are being addressed, particularly in upper-elementary ELA, may want to ask the school directly.
One district-level development that bears on that question: Pinellas County Schools publicly reported earning its first-ever top state grade from the Florida Department of Education in 2024, tied to a district-built core ELA curriculum aligned to Florida's B.E.S.T. standards. The curriculum begins with kindergarten through second grade and extends a science-of-reading approach with a word-study component through fifth grade. That is a genuine instructional shift, and it is the context in which North Shore's current scores were produced.
The student body is a mix. White students make up a majority, with Black and Hispanic students each representing meaningful shares, and smaller numbers of Asian and multiracial students. Roughly two-fifths of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a moderately elevated economic diversity level for the city. Data on students with IEPs and English learners was not reported, so that picture is incomplete.
The surrounding neighborhood shapes what it means to live near this school considerably. North Shore sits adjacent to the city's downtown waterfront park network, and the Historic Old Northeast neighborhood directly around it is among the most sought-after addresses in St. Petersburg, featuring historic homes, walkable streets, and a short distance to the cultural and commercial activity of Central Avenue and downtown. Home values in this zip code are well above both the Florida statewide median and the national median, and have edged slightly downward over the past year. Rents, by contrast, have ticked upward. The monthly carrying cost of a home here runs substantially above a typical Florida mortgage payment, placing the area in a high-cost tier within the region.
St. Petersburg itself is in a period of sustained growth and construction. A generational redevelopment of the roughly 86-acre Tropicana Field site is advancing, mixed-use towers are rising in and around downtown, and the city has been adding both market-rate and affordable housing. Families weighing a move to the area should expect that the neighborhood around North Shore, already desirable and densely historic, sits adjacent to a city in active transformation.
On the district side, voters in late 2024 renewed and expanded a local property tax that funds teacher and support-staff bonuses and programs including reading, music, art, and technology at the elementary level. That vote doubled the prior rate and is relevant to any homeowner's carrying cost calculation, though it also functions as a program stabilizer for schools like North Shore.
Information on specific programs, extracurriculars, staffing ratios, chronic absenteeism, and discipline was not available in the data, leaving gaps a parent would reasonably want filled before making a final judgment. A conversation with the school directly is the right next step for those details.
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