The top reported proficiency rate is 29% in Math. The lowest is 9% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Deaf Middle School (fsdb)
The Deaf Middle School at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind is not a neighborhood school in the conventional sense. It is a state-operated, tuition-free public school serving deaf and hard-of-hearing students in grades six through eight, located on the FSDB campus along San Marco Avenue in St. Augustine. Families from across Florida can enroll eligible students, and publicly reported information indicates that roughly two-thirds of FSDB students board on campus during the week, returning home on weekends, while the remainder attend as day students. That residential dimension shapes nearly everything about this school's character, from peer relationships to daily support structures.
The campus sits in a growing, walkable city. St. Augustine has a compact historic downtown, a strong tourism economy, and a mix of older neighborhoods and newer suburban development. Northrop Grumman and Flagler Health+ anchor private-sector employment, and Flagler College is a near neighbor on the downtown street grid. The area is growing quickly, with St. Johns County among the faster-growing counties in the country, though the school draws from the whole state rather than the surrounding community.
The student body is small for a middle school, spread fairly evenly across the three grades. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The racial and ethnic composition is diverse, with white, Hispanic, and Black students each making up meaningful shares of enrollment, along with smaller Asian and multiracial populations.
On Florida's FAST assessments, the school's proficiency figures are well below state norms across all three subjects and grades. In English language arts the results are particularly low across all grade levels, and science proficiency at the eighth-grade level is also very low. Math shows more variation by grade, with eighth-grade results notably stronger than the sixth-grade figure. Against the two districts in St. Johns County, the school's overall proficiency index places it below the midpoint of that small comparison set. A parent should weigh these figures carefully while also recognizing the important context: standardized assessments in English are administered to students whose primary language may be American Sign Language, and the FAST assessments are not designed with deaf students as the reference population. What these numbers capture about academic growth in communication, language, and content within a specialized educational environment is genuinely limited. A parent wanting a fuller picture of academic progress would do well to ask the school directly how it tracks student growth in both ASL and English literacy, and what supplementary measures it uses beyond state testing.
On the facility side, the picture is meaningful for families considering a residential placement. The Florida Legislature has made a series of large capital investments in the FSDB campus in recent years, including a substantial appropriation in 2025 and ongoing renovation work on residential halls and aging campus infrastructure. This is a state-funded school with no tuition cost to families, and the sustained multi-year capital commitment reflects a degree of institutional stability that matters when a family is contemplating a boarding arrangement.
No graduation rate applies to this school, as it serves only the middle grades. Chronic absenteeism data was not available. IEP and English learner population figures were also not reported in the data provided, which is unusual to note given that this is a special education school by definition; a parent would want to ask the school directly about how individual education plans are structured and what related services are available on campus.
The program details beyond what state testing captures were not available in the data we reviewed. For a school of this kind, the quality of the communication environment, the depth of ASL instruction and Deaf culture programming, and the residential life staff's experience are at least as consequential as any academic metric, and those are questions best answered in a campus visit or a direct conversation with the school.
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