The top reported proficiency rate is 86% in English language arts. The lowest is 80% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Alice B. Landrum Middle School
Alice B. Landrum Middle School serves sixth through eighth graders in Ponte Vedra Beach, a coastal unincorporated community in St. Johns County that sits within the Jacksonville metropolitan area. The school is a regular public middle school in the St. Johns County School District, sharing a Landrum Lane address with Ocean Palms Elementary in a suburban campus setting rather than any kind of walkable town center — Ponte Vedra Beach has no traditional incorporated downtown and civic life is organized around neighborhoods, parks, and beach access rather than a commercial core.
The academic results here are among the strongest you will find at any public middle school in Florida. On the Florida FAST assessments, sixth graders posted proficiency rates in both math and ELA well above the statewide midpoint, and eighth graders performed at nearly the same level in math and ELA, with science scores in that grade also landing well above average. Seventh grade ELA remained strong. The one place worth noting is seventh grade math, where proficiency was meaningfully lower than in sixth or eighth grade — still above the Florida median for most school populations, but a real dip within an otherwise high-performing building. A parent who wants to understand that pattern more specifically would be worth asking the school directly.
When placed against districts in St. Johns County using the comparison set available for this county, Landrum's overall proficiency index sits at the very top of that range, well above the county median. That context matters: St. Johns County itself is already known as one of Florida's highest-performing districts, so outperforming its county median is not a trivial distinction.
The school's student body is a largely homogenous, economically comfortable population. A very small share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, one of the lowest rates you will encounter in a Florida public school. The racial composition is predominantly white, with Asian and Hispanic students each representing a smaller but present share of enrollment, and the remaining students spread across other categories. Data on English learner status and students with IEPs were not available in what we reviewed. The enrollment is large for a middle school of its grade band, drawing from a community that has grown substantially in recent years, driven in large part by the Nocatee master-planned development to the west, which is publicly reported as nearing its final development phase.
The community context shapes the housing market families would enter. Home values in the zip code are dramatically higher than the Florida statewide median and substantially above the national median — this is one of the more expensive real estate markets in the state. Rents have also risen over the past year. The estimated monthly carrying cost for a typical home purchase in this zip code, even with a standard down payment, runs well above what median household income nationally would support, and the price-to-income ratio here is notably stretched. Families renting rather than buying still face costs that approach a third of median income. None of this is surprising given that St. Johns County is publicly described as Florida's wealthiest county, but it is a real constraint to weigh.
Two funding decisions from the November 2024 election are directly relevant to homebuyers. Voters passed a new one-mill property tax increase dedicated to school operations — covering teacher salaries, school safety, nurses, mental health counselors, and programs like science, art, music, and athletics. That adds an ongoing cost to every assessed property in the county. Voters also renewed the district's half-cent capital sales surtax for another multi-year term, which funds new school construction, maintenance, technology, and safety improvements in a district that has been managing rapid enrollment growth. Both measures passed with clear majority support. The sales tax renewal is relevant to any purchase in the county; the property tax increase is a direct line on a homeowner's annual tax bill.
Detailed program offerings for Landrum itself — extracurriculars, electives, specific academic tracks — were not available in the data we reviewed, so a parent researching those specifics would want to go directly to the school or the St. Johns County School District. Chronic absenteeism and discipline data were also not available for this school in what we received.
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