Florida had 6 percent more A-rated schools this year than last year. The Flagler County school district was not among them.
For the fourth straight year and the 11th of the last 12 years that the state has issued school grades, the Flagler County School District was rated B, despite a year of gains in almost every one of the district’s nine traditional school and in many categories. It just wasn’t enough. The district fell just two percentage points short of the needed 64 to rank an A, as it did last year, even though the threshold for an A was significantly lower than two years ago.
The grade is not going to help the district’s push to be seen as “the best choice” in an era of subsidized vouchers, homeschooling and declining enrollment in Flagler schools.
Old Kings Elementary, Indian Trails Middle and Matanzas High School all maintained the A they earned last year, with Old Kings extending its streak of As to four years and Indian Trails extending it to seven (with just one B in Indian Trails’ existence since 2006).
Bunnell, Belle Terre, Rymfire and Wadsworth Elementary and Flagler Palm Coast High School all maintained the B they had last year. But Buddy Taylor fell from a B to a C, as did iFlagler. Imagine School at Town Center, a privately run charter school still considered a public school because it is publicly funded, also fell from a B to a C.
Those losses played a significant role in the overall grade, though only because the rest of the schools’ rather middling performances, overall, were not enough to counter the effects of the lowest-performing schools: last year Buddy Taylor racked up 518 points. It lost 13. Imagine at Town Center had 604 points last year. It had 555 this year, a loss of 49 points. Both schools received 56 percent of total points available. Bunnell Elementary got 55, but its improvements in certain categories helped it keep its B.
Grades are based on 12 criteria, each scored on a 100-point scale. To get an A, districts must get 64 percent of the 1,200 possible total, or at least 768 points. (For individual schools, elementary schools must get 62 percent, middle and high schools must get 64.) Flagler schools tallied 749, five points better than last year, and 19 points short of the threshold for an A.
The 12 criteria include such things as math, English, science and social studies achievement, but also gains among the lowest-performing 25 percent of the student body, scores in accelerated classes, the graduation rate, and so on.
Flagler schools improved their graduation rate by a point, to 89 percent. Students improved in English, social studies and science but fell back in math by two points, and in both English and math, the lowest-performing 25 percent lost ground. There was also a one-point loss in college and career acceleration, from 48 to 47 percent. The component is based graduating students who earned passing scores on advanced courses such as the International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement, Cambridge AICE, dual enrollment college classes, and industry certifications. Unlike other categories, those scores reflect year-ago results, so what was recorded this year reflects the scores of 2023-24 graduates.
The 2024-2025 school grades show that 28 of Florida’s 67 districts are A districts, 31 are B, eight are C, and none are D or F.
The highest-scoring counties are Nassau and St. Johns, both achieving 74 percent, and Lafayette and Walton scoring 73 percent. Collier, Indian River, Sarasota, and Miami-Dade counties were the next highest scoring.
Gadsden County scored lowest, achieving 49 percent of points available. The next above Gadsden County were Jefferson at 51 percent, Hamilton at 52, Okeechobee at 53, and Madison at 54.
“Florida schools are improving across the board, and this is a direct result of the governor’s innovative policies and his mandate to school board members and superintendents across the state to bring education back to the basics and focus on student success,” incoming Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas said during a news conference in Jacksonville Monday afternoon.
In 2022-2023, high schools needed to score 70 percent for an A and middle schools needed 68 percent.
No districts received a D or F this year, although 10 schools received an F and 61 received a D.
According to the department, 347 schools, or 10 percent, decreased their grade this year from last year and 1,908 schools, or 56 percent, increased or maintained an A. State metrics showed 6 percent more schools are rated A this year compared to last.
According to department data, 573 schools rated D or F in 2015 while, in 2025, 71 schools rated a D or F. Last year, 117 schools fell within in the lowest two grades.
The grading scale will change next year, and the department anticipates about 12 districts now rated A will no longer receive that mark and 12 more will be rated C. State law requires the scale to change if more than 75 percent of schools receive an A or B rating.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and Kamoutsas credited the rising grades largely to progress monitoring assessments, which just completed the third year of administration. The progress monitoring tests, the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking, focus on student achievement throughout the year instead of on just end of the year exams.
“I think the progress monitoring has led to better student performance and better student achievement. There’s always things that we’re looking to do to improve, and if there’s policies that we need to implement at the state level, either through the education department, or if we need to go to the Legislature to seek reforms, we won’t hesitate to do so,” DeSantis said.
The Phoenix reported last month that math scores for all Florida students improved by 3 percent in 2024-2025 when compared to 2023-2024 and reading scores increased by 4% in that same time frame.
–FlaglerLive and Jay Waagmeester, Florida Phoenix
Flagler County School Grades, 2005-2025
| School | 2005 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bunnell Elementary | A | B | B | A | A | B | B | A | B (C)* | A | B | C | C | C | C | C | C | B | B |
| Belle Terre Elementary | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | B | B | B | A | A | B | B | B | |
| Old Kings Elementary | A | A | A | A | A | B | A | A | B | A | A | C | A | B | B | A | A | A | A |
| Rymfire Elementary | B | A | B | C | A | A | B (c)* | A | B | B | B | C | B | C | B | B | B | ||
| Wadsworth Elementary | A | A | B | A | B | B | A | A | A | A | A | B | C | C | B | B | B | B | B |
| Imagine | D | A | C | A | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | C | ||||
| Indian Trails Middle | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | B | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | |
| Buddy Taylor Middle | B | A | A | A | A | A | A | B | C | C | B | C | C | C | C | C | C | B | C |
| Flagler-Palm Coast High | C | B | C | A | D | B | B | B | A | B | B | C | B | B | B | C | B | B | B |
| Mantanzas High | C | D | A | B | B | B | A | A | B | A | B | B | B | B | B | B | A | A | |
| iFlagler | B | B | A | A | C | ||||||||||||||
| District | B | A | A | A | A | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | A | B | B | B | B |
Grades are based on standardized tests and other factors, including student improvement, end-of-year exams, AP and IB, dual enrollment, and graduation rates.
(*) In 2013, the state Board of Education agreed to pad grades in such a way as to prevent them from falling by more than one letter grade. More than 20 percent of schools benefited from the padding, including Rymfire and Bunnell elementaries in Flagler, whose grades would have been a C if the actual standards were applied.
