The top reported proficiency rate is 64% in Science. The lowest is 60% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Sandy Lane Elementary School
Sandy Lane Elementary is a public school in Clearwater serving children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. It sits within Pinellas County Schools, the sole district operating in the county.
The student body is relatively small for a K-5 school. A very large share of enrolled students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, making it one of the more economically disadvantaged campuses by that measure. The school is racially diverse, with Black students making up the largest group, followed by Hispanic and white students, and smaller shares of multiracial and Asian students. Data on English learner rates and special education enrollment were not available in the materials reviewed.
On Florida's FAST assessments, results are mixed and vary by grade and subject. In reading, proficiency holds in a similar range across the tested grades, with third graders somewhat ahead of fourth and fifth. Math tells a sharper story: fourth grade proficiency is notably stronger than either third or fifth grade, and the gap between fourth and third grade in particular is wide. On the fifth-grade science assessment, the school's proficiency sits in the low-to-mid sixties range. Taken together, results are moderate, with some grades performing solidly and others trailing. A parent who wants to understand how any given grade cohort arrived at these results, and what the school is doing with students not yet at grade level, would do well to ask the school directly.
The district context matters here. Pinellas County Schools has been in a period of deliberate academic rebuilding. The district developed its own custom ELA curriculum aligned to Florida's B.E.S.T. standards, built around a science-of-reading approach that started in the early grades and has since extended upward. Publicly reported data indicate the district earned its first-ever "A" grade from the state in 2024, and the early-literacy initiative has been cited as central to that shift. Sandy Lane families can expect this curriculum framework to be in place, and it gives a concrete grounding to what the school teaches and how reading is structured. In November 2024, Pinellas County voters renewed and expanded the local school property tax, doubling the rate for a multi-year period. The funds go toward teacher and support-staff bonuses and toward reading, music, art, and technology programs. For a prospective buyer, this represents a real and ongoing cost; for a parent, it represents a structural support for staffing and program breadth.
The surrounding area reflects Clearwater broadly. The school's zip code shows home values running somewhat below the Florida statewide median, and recent trends show modest year-over-year softening in both home prices and rents. Rents in the area consume a substantial share of typical household income at current levels. Clearwater itself is a mid-sized Pinellas County city with a compact downtown undergoing serious redevelopment. Publicly reported activity includes a new City Hall, a waterfront hotel, a multi-story apartment tower, and the already-opened Coachman Park, a large waterfront green space with an amphitheater managed by Ruth Eckerd Hall. Transit is provided through PSTA, and a new multimodal station is reportedly under construction downtown. Most of Clearwater outside the downtown core is more car-oriented, with walkability concentrated along Cleveland Street and the harbor. The city's economy draws on technology distribution, aerospace manufacturing, and medical-device production, with major employers headquartered or operating nearby.
No data were available for chronic absenteeism, discipline, or staffing ratios. Comparison proficiency data relative to other districts in Pinellas County could not be computed because the county is served by a single district. Multi-year trend data were also not available, so whether current results represent improvement or decline from prior years cannot be determined from what is here.
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