The top reported proficiency rate is 65% in Science. The lowest is 60% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on John M. Sexton Elementary School
John M. Sexton Elementary sits on the north side of St. Petersburg, serving children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade within Pinellas County Schools. It is a traditional public elementary school with no charter or magnet designation.
The school draws a genuinely diverse student body. White students make up the largest single group, but Hispanic, Black, Asian, and multiracial students collectively form the majority. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places Sexton among higher-need schools in the district. Data on English learners and students with IEPs was not available in what we were provided.
On Florida's FAST assessments, the picture varies by subject and grade. Third-grade math stands out as a clear strength, with a large majority of students testing proficient. Fifth grade holds relatively steady in both math and ELA, with roughly two-thirds of students meeting proficiency in each. Fourth grade is where the data shows a softer spot: both math and ELA results drop to around half of students at grade level, a noticeable dip that a parent may want to ask the school about directly. Fifth-grade science tracks similarly to fifth-grade ELA and math. Multi-year trend data was not available, so whether these results are improving, holding, or declining cannot be determined from what we have.
Because Sexton serves only pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, graduation rate data does not apply. The school's grade band ends well before high school.
Pinellas County Schools recently earned its first-ever top state grade from the Florida Department of Education, publicly reported as tied to a district-designed ELA curriculum built around the science of reading, starting in the early elementary grades. That curriculum context is directly relevant at a school like Sexton, where early literacy lays the foundation for everything that follows. In late 2024, voters approved renewing and expanding a local-option school property tax, doubling the rate for a multi-year term. Publicly reported information indicates the funds support teacher and staff bonuses and programs in reading, music, art, and technology. For a family buying a home in the area, that tax is a real line item in household costs, though it also represents a voter-backed commitment to program stability.
The neighborhood around Sexton is set a few miles north of downtown St. Petersburg, away from the dense commercial and arts corridor of Central Avenue and the waterfront. The broader city is in an active development phase, with residential construction extending well beyond the downtown core. Home values in the zip code have softened over the past year, coming in noticeably below the Florida statewide median, and rents run at a level that consumes a meaningful share of a typical household's income. The rental cost roughly tracks a modest premium over an estimated mortgage payment, which is a narrower spread than in many metros, meaning the rent-versus-buy calculation here is relatively close.
St. Petersburg as a whole carries genuine day-to-day infrastructure: a free public library system with branches across the city, county bus service including the SunRunner rapid transit line connecting downtown to the beaches, a downtown trolley, and an extensive waterfront park network. Major employers span financial services, health care, marine science, and a technology sector anchored partly by USF's downtown campus. These are practical considerations for families thinking about where a working adult's career might be rooted alongside where children go to school.
Discipline data, attendance data, staffing ratios, and specific program offerings for Sexton were not available in what we were provided, so those dimensions of the school's environment cannot be characterized here. A parent would want to visit the school and ask directly about classroom support, after-school programming, and how the fourth-grade results in particular are being addressed.
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