School Spirit, Soaring Scores

The Florida Department of Education (FDOE) has released 2024-2025 school and district grades for Florida. Most school district grades in the Big Bend region remained the same, but several individual schools in Leon County improved their grades.

Leon County’s Sabal Palm Elementary School improved its grade from a ‘D’ to an ‘A.’ Reportedly, the school is achieving an ‘A’ grade for the first time in 18 years. Ruediger Elementary School, also in Leon County, improved from a ‘C’ to an ‘A.’

The annual school report cards were released following the statewide rollout of Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) progress monitoring assessments. Last month, the office of Governor Ron DeSantis reported that student performance has improved under the state’s new testing standards.

On the district level, most local grades remained the same as last year. The only change among the Big Bend school districts was an increase for Taylor County from a ‘C’ to a ‘B.’ Leon County received a ‘B’ grade, while Lafayette and Wakulla counties both received ‘A’ grades.

2024-2025 Big Bend District Grades:

Franklin: C

Gadsden: C

Hamilton: C

Jefferson: C

Lafayette: A

Leon: B

Madison: C

Suwannee: B

Taylor: B

Wakulla: A