The top reported proficiency rate is 70% in Math. The lowest is 64% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Ponce De Leon Elementary School
Ponce de Leon Elementary sits on Ponce de Leon Boulevard in Clearwater, serving children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school in the Pinellas County Schools district. The enrollment is sizeable for an elementary, with children spread fairly evenly across grade levels from kindergarten through fifth grade plus a pre-K program. The student body is racially and ethnically diverse: Hispanic students make up the largest single group, followed by Black students, then white students, with smaller shares of Asian and multiracial students. A large majority of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, meaning the school serves a predominantly economically disadvantaged community. Data on English learner rates and students with IEPs were not available in what was provided.
On the Florida state assessments, Ponce de Leon's results are worth looking at carefully. Math proficiency across the three tested elementary grades runs from the mid-sixties to the low-seventies, which is a solid range, particularly the fourth-grade result, which sits clearly above the two-thirds mark. Science proficiency at fifth grade is in a similar range. ELA is the softer side of the picture: third-grade reading proficiency is in the upper sixties, but fourth- and fifth-grade ELA results fall into the low sixties, meaning roughly four in ten students in those grades are not yet reading proficiently by state standards. Parents who want to understand how the school is responding to that pattern may want to ask directly, though the district context is relevant here.
Pinellas County Schools recently developed its own custom ELA curriculum aligned to Florida's B.E.S.T. standards, built around a science-of-reading approach starting in the earliest grades and extending a structured word-study component into grades three through five. Publicly reported accounts note the district earned its first-ever state grade of "A" from the Florida Department of Education in 2024, with grades three through five showing growth above the statewide average. That curriculum infrastructure applies to Ponce de Leon as a Pinellas school, and it is likely relevant context for the ELA numbers families are seeing.
In November 2024, Pinellas County voters approved renewing and expanding a local-option school property tax, doubling the mill rate for a multi-year period. Publicly reported details indicate the funds support teacher and staff bonuses and programs including reading, music, art, and technology. For a family considering buying in the area, this is a concrete added cost on the property tax bill, but also a stabilizing source of funding for programs and staffing at schools like this one.
The school is located in a Clearwater neighborhood where the housing market has seen modest year-over-year price softening, sitting just below the Florida statewide median home value and close to the national median. Rents in the zip code have also pulled back slightly year over year, though they still account for a meaningful share of a typical household's income. Clearwater is a mid-sized Pinellas County city undergoing an ambitious downtown redevelopment cycle. The reopened Coachman Park waterfront, a new City Hall, a large mixed-use apartment tower under construction, and a new transit station all represent a sustained wave of investment in the downtown core, which sits relatively close to the school's neighborhood. The city's largest employers include a global IT distribution headquarters, aerospace manufacturing, and medical-technology operations, giving the local economy a broader base than tourism alone.
Multi-year trend data for Ponce de Leon was not available, so it is not possible to say from the data provided whether proficiency rates here have been rising, falling, or holding steady. A graduation rate does not apply to this school, which serves only pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. The neighbor comparison data indicated that Pinellas County has only one district in the county comparison set, so a positioned comparison against county peers was not meaningful and was not computed.
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