The top reported proficiency rate is 48% in Math. The lowest is 26% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Taylor County Middle School
Taylor County Middle School sits on East Lafayette Street in Perry, the seat of Taylor County in Florida's rural Big Bend region. It serves sixth through eighth graders as the district's sole middle school, a regular public school without charter or magnet status.
The student body is predominantly white, with a meaningful share of Black students and smaller Hispanic and multiracial populations. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, making this a high-poverty school by any standard measure. IEP and English learner data were not reported in the data available.
On Florida's FAST assessments, proficiency rates across all three grades and subjects land below what most families in competitive markets would expect, and the pattern runs consistently across ELA and math. Sixth and seventh graders show somewhat stronger results than eighth graders, where both reading and math proficiency fall to the lower range of what was reported. The eighth-grade science assessment, the Florida Statewide Science Assessment, reflects a similar gap. Trend data was not available, so there is no way to read whether these results are improving, holding steady, or declining. Parents who want to understand how these numbers have moved over time should ask the school directly. The comparison set for this school contained only one district in Taylor County, so a meaningful peer comparison was not possible from the data available.
Program offerings were not reported in the data provided. Civil rights and discipline data were also absent.
The community context is shaped heavily by two recent developments at the district level. Hurricane Idalia made direct landfall in Taylor County in the summer of 2023 as a powerful storm, damaging roofs across school facilities. The district undertook a large-scale repair and replacement effort, publicly reported to include dozens of roofs. As of early 2026, the district was publicly reported to be carrying a substantial financial burden after FEMA denied a portion of those damage claims, leaving an unresolved gap in its budget that families considering the area would want to track. A half-cent school sales surtax question is also headed to voters on the November 2026 general election ballot, placed there by the county commission at the school board's request. If passed, it would generate ongoing annual revenue for facilities, security, technology, and transportation. Neither the FEMA situation nor the ballot outcome is resolved, so the district's capital and maintenance picture carries real uncertainty going into the near term.
Housing in Taylor County is considerably more affordable than the Florida state median, with home values well below the statewide figure and appreciating modestly on a year-over-year basis. No rental index data was available. For families relocating from higher-cost Florida markets, the cost of entry is low relative to the state norm.
Perry itself is a small rural county seat. The locale brief search returned no usable results on employers, walkability, downtown character, or recent development, so those dimensions are left out rather than guessed at. Families unfamiliar with the area should expect a rural setting with limited services compared to Florida's larger metros.
This is the only middle school in the district, so enrollment geography is not a choice families make. What they are weighing is whether the academic trajectory the school's current proficiency data suggests is one they can work with or supplement, alongside a district navigating genuine post-storm financial strain and a capital funding question that voters will decide this fall.
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