Image via Florida Department of Education: Top 10 Scored districts.

The much-anticipated school grades for the 2022-2023 school year were released under the new assessment system implemented in the State of Florida. Data was released much later than usual and also in parts. The data released this week dealt with District rankings and grades, and also individual school rankings and grades. This column will cover district data.

Sarasota received an “A” grade this year and was ranked 5th in the state in overall points. The No. 1 district, Lafayette County, scored 41 more points than Sarasota. The No. 2 ranked St. John’s County scored 24 points more, No. 3 Walton scored 20 points more, and No. 4 Nassau scored 14 points more than Sarasota overall.

Sarasota Schools are in a two-way tie for 3rd in English Language Arts with Gilcrist County.  St. John’s County is No. 1 in English Language Arts and is 10 points ahead of Sarasota.

Sarasota ranks 8th in Mathematics in the State of Florida. We are 10 points behind St. Johns County, which is No. 1 in math.

We are in a two-way tie for 5th in Science with Gilchrist County. Similar to Math and English, Sarasota is 10 points behind St. John’s County, which is No. 1 in Science.

Sarasota ranks 4th in the state for Social Studies. We are 4 points behind St. Johns County, which is No. 1 in the state in Social Studies.

Middle School Acceleration rates are our worst data from this past school year. We are in a three-way tie for 18th in the state with Suwanee and St. Lucie Counties.  We are 20 points behind Lafayette County, which is No. 1 in the state.

Graduation Rates and College and Career Acceleration are a part of school grades, but this data lags by a year from the other data above. This data will be from the 2021-‘22 school year.     

Sarasota is in a seven-way tie for 21st in Graduation Rates with the counties of Palm Beach, Lake, Putnam, Glades, Hernando and Volusia. We are nine points behind Lafayette, which is No. 1 in the state in Graduation Rates.

We are in a two-way tie for 8th in College and Career Acceleration with Walton County. Lafayette is No. 1 in the state and 19 points ahead of Sarasota County in this category.

Sarasota County scored big in English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies – landing consistently in the top seven in these fundamentals. This is a big deal for our district and should be celebrated. We are thankful to the teachers for making sure our children are learning the foundation for success.

The community should also be thanked for its consistent support of our schools through the many volunteers and also the extra tax dollars we vote on to create this success.

There is more work to be done, and this new superintendent has his eyes on the No. 1 spot for all categories and will be using the school data to make that happen. Congratulations to the students, teachers and the community, this is a great grade and great rankings. We will get even better.

Christine Robinson is Executive Director of The Argus Foundation.

Image via Florida Department of Education: Top 10 Scored districts.