The top reported proficiency rate is 56% in Math. The lowest is 43% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Woodlawn Elementary School
Woodlawn Elementary sits at the northern edge of downtown St. Petersburg, serving children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in a neighborhood that is walkable, historically textured, and currently in the middle of significant citywide growth. The school is part of Pinellas County Schools, a district that publicly reported earning its first-ever top state grade in 2024, credited in part to a custom core reading curriculum built around the science of reading, beginning in the earliest grades and extending through fifth grade with a structured word-study component. That curriculum shift is the context within which Woodlawn's current results sit.
On Florida's state assessments, the picture at Woodlawn is uneven across grades and subjects. Fourth-grade math stands out as a clear strength, with most students reaching proficiency. Third- and fifth-grade math results are considerably lower, with fewer than half of students proficient in each. ELA proficiency across all three tested grades is below half, with third grade showing the widest gap. Science, assessed only at fifth grade, comes in somewhat better, with a majority of fifth graders reaching proficiency. Multi-year trend data was not available in the data provided, so it is not possible to characterize whether performance has been improving or holding steady. The district's described curriculum rollout and its recent state grade improvement are worth discussing directly with the school, particularly for families with younger children entering the early literacy pipeline.
Woodlawn is a small school by the measure of its grade band. Its student body is racially and ethnically diverse: Black students make up the largest group, followed by white and Hispanic students, with smaller shares of Asian and multiracial students. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which signals that the school serves a predominantly economically disadvantaged community. Data on English learner rates and students with IEPs were not available in the provided data. Discipline, attendance, staffing ratios, and course-access information were also absent from the data, so those dimensions of school life cannot be characterized here.
On the district side, voters in November 2024 renewed and expanded a local property tax levy that funds teacher and staff bonuses, reading, music, art, and technology programs. For a family buying into the Woodlawn attendance zone, this levy is a real cost built into homeownership and is also a stabilizer for the programs and staffing families rely on.
The housing market in the zip code where Woodlawn sits is well above Florida's statewide median home value and has moved modestly downward over the past year. Rents are tracking slightly upward year over year. For context, the estimated monthly housing cost at current prices and mortgage rates represents a meaningful financial commitment relative to national income benchmarks, and rent-to-income ratios here sit at the edge of what is typically considered affordable. St. Petersburg broadly is in an active development phase, with large mixed-use and residential projects underway both downtown and in surrounding neighborhoods, which means the residential landscape around the school is changing.
The surrounding neighborhood is walkable by most urban measures, with a pedestrian-friendly grid, transit access through Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority including the SunRunner bus rapid transit line, and downtown St. Petersburg's parks, libraries, and cultural institutions within reach. For families who value an urban, connected setting, this is a genuine characteristic of life around Woodlawn.
A parent considering Woodlawn would reasonably want to ask the school directly about how the district's science-of-reading curriculum is being implemented in each classroom, what interventions are in place for students reading below grade level, and what the trajectory of school-level results has looked like over the past few years given the district's broader improvement arc. The comparison framework available here covers only Pinellas County's single district, which limits peer benchmarking at the school level.
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