The top reported proficiency rate is 66% in Math. The lowest is 56% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Bushnell Elementary School
Bushnell Elementary sits on West Flannery Avenue in the county seat of Sumter County, a small, predominantly rural Florida community where ranchland, farms, and waterways define the surrounding landscape. Bushnell is described publicly as having a quiet, suburban-rural character where most residents own their homes and a notable share are retirees. The school serves children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, so there is no graduation rate to report and no high school testing data to consider.
The school's enrollment is on the larger end for an elementary serving its grade band. Close to half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, meaning economic need is real and present across a substantial portion of families. The student body is majority white, with Hispanic students making up roughly a quarter of enrollment, a smaller Black population, and a variety of other backgrounds represented. Data on students receiving special education services and English learners was not available in what was provided.
State assessment results from Florida's FAST program give a mixed picture. Third-grade math is a genuine strength, with most students scoring proficient, one of the better results in the dataset. Fourth-grade reading comes in solidly above the midpoint, and fifth-grade reading is close behind it. Where the picture softens is in fourth- and fifth-grade math, where results fall below the majority-proficient threshold, and in fifth-grade science, which lands just over half proficient. Third-grade reading shows the largest gap, falling short of half the class reaching proficiency. Families with children moving into or through the upper elementary grades, particularly in math and early reading, may want to ask the school directly about the supports in place. Multi-year trend data was not available in what was provided, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement, a plateau, or decline.
The housing market around Bushnell is notably more accessible than Florida as a whole. Home values here sit meaningfully below the statewide benchmark and have been growing modestly. Rent cost data for the immediate area was not available, though national shelter-cost indexes reflect continued upward pressure on renting broadly. For a family priced out of larger Florida metros, Sumter County and Bushnell offer a materially lower entry point into homeownership. The county itself, home to The Villages retirement community, has been among Florida's fastest-growing, and Bushnell specifically is seeing steady commercial and residential expansion, including new-home communities and a master-planned mixed-use development that signals continued investment in the area.
The district context matters here too. Sumter County's school system has been adding permanent classroom space at other schools to address enrollment pressure driven by county-wide growth. The Villages Charter School, a workplace-based charter approved by the Sumter County Board of Education, also completed a significant expansion in fall 2023, adding school-choice capacity for families with a parent employed by The Villages. That option is enrollment-based on parental employment rather than home address, so it applies only to a specific subset of families.
Bushnell's civic anchors are modest and well-suited to small-town life: a public library with children's programming, three city-operated parks including sports fields, and proximity to Dade Battlefield Historic State Park and the Withlacoochee State Forest. The school is a short walk from the town's historic courthouse square. There is no documented fixed-route public transit serving the area.
Program details for the school, including any specific enrichment, intervention, or special-population programs, were not available in the data provided. A family considering Bushnell Elementary would do well to ask the school directly about reading intervention in the early grades, math support in grades four and five, and what services are available for students with IEPs or English language needs given the data gaps in those areas.
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